Hyperdimension Remnant
by Fiesta Machine
Summary: Neptune and Noire switch places with Ruby and Weiss; what could possibly go wrong? Throughout their journeys to return to normal they will fight monsters, sink ships, and wreak general havoc on bad guys. Expect no fourth wall here.
1. Chapter 1

Noire was the first to wake up and was quite confused when she did. The first thing she saw was a bed hanging above her face. While it's true that she didn't remember much of last night, she didn't think a room like this existed at Planeptune's Basilicom. Her head was still pounding and she had an urge to go find Neptune for some reason. It's not like she was worried about her or anything! She just needed to yell at her for convincing all the CPUs to stay up that late.

Rolling over on the bed, Noire got a glimpse of the other occupants of the room. In the bed across from her lay a girl not unlike herself. Her jet black hair cascaded over her back and shoulders. She wore a black robe and what appeared to be a bow atop her head. However upon closer inspection, they looked to be cat ears that actually twitched! Maybe she took cosplay very seriously.

At first Noire thought the girl in the upper bed was Vert. She had a similar voluptuous figure and her hair was a bright yellow. She wore a orange tanktop and black shorts and looked to be in a very deep sleep. Something started to seem off now. The Basilicom's rooms weren't open to the public with the exception of those invited by the CPUs and during times of severe conflict. Noire had never met these people before but maybe they were friends of Neptune's?

In any case she needed to get her bearings and rolled out of bed. The room was fairly plain with the exception of some sparse decorations. There was a large bookshelf that housed the novels that weren't currently busy holding up one of the beds. A framed poster of a group of men hung on one of the walls. Noire, the pop culture addict, had never heard of the 'Achieve-Men.' Maybe they were an indie band? The piece of art on the opposite wall was quite beautiful with its depiction of a red forest. It was a serene piece that looked like something out of Blanc's room. Despite being in the Basilicom, she felt quite alien here.

She was about to leave before she realized that she never saw who was in the bed above her. Standing on her toes, her heart skipped a beat when her eyes spotted the lavender chaos that was Neptune's hair. She looked so cute laying there, Noire had half a mind to join her. 'N-no that would never work' she thought to herself. She waited for her blush to die down and started for the door but only made it halfway before a voice stopped her. "Weiss what are you doing up so..." Noire turned around and found found herself transfixed by the amber eyes of the raven haired girl.

* * *

"Yang get up." Blake was now fully alert after seeing this intruder. "Five more minutes." came the muffled reply. Blake broke eye contact with the stranger to glance at Ruby's bed and saw it was occupied by another person she'd never seen before. "Ruby and Weiss are gone and there are two strangers here." Blake's words were sharp and insistent as she glared back at the girl with the twintails.

Yang rolled out of bed and landed on one knee in next to her. Cracking a slight smirk, Blake stood and hardened her gaze. "Now why don't you tell us who you are and what you did with our teamates."

The girl had been frozen for during this exchange but she finally spoke. "Why don't I give you my name and then you tell me yours?"

This girl had some attitude then. Nothing Blake wasn't used to from dealing with a certain special snowflake. As Blake was about to open her mouth, Yang spoke for her instead. "I'm Yang, this is my partner Blake."

"I just needed your names, I didn't need your... status." The girl sounded nonplussed.

Blake's eyes went wide. "Nonono wait! We're not partners like that!" Blake's usual facade had been broken and she was quickly trying to return to seriousness. "We're partners on our team." She clarified.

"Oookay then." The intruder just shook her head. "Well at any rate my name is Noire."

"So then Noire, what are you doing here?" Blake put as much questioning into her voice as she could.

Noire seemed confused now. "Wait, I'm not at the Basilicom?"

"What's a Basilicom?" Blake had never heard of whatever that was. Was this girl alright?

"Wait where am I?!" Noire eyes had widened in shock.

"Relax, you're at Beacon Academy. It's one of the safest places in Remnant." Yang chimed in with a reassuring voice.

"Whas with all the yelling" The lavender themed girl half-slurred as she quite literally fell off of her bed. "Whaaa, I don't remember having bunkbeds." She seemed as confused as the rest of them.

"Neptune do you remember anything from last night?" Noire asked half-embarrassed.

"Nope. It got really fuzzy after Vert suggested we marathon that whole series. Ugh I don't think I'll ever play another Circle game again."

Noire sighed heavily. "So where did you say we are?"

"Beacon Academy. Best combat school in all of Remnant." Yang repeated

"Remnant?" The purple girl burst in. "What's that?"

Blake and Yang looked on incredulously. "It's... the planet we live on."

Noire processed this for a few seconds and then walked back to Weiss's bed. "Not again."

"What's up Noire?" Neptune looked around. "Wait this doesn't look like my room."

"We got transported to another dimension. Again." Noire said with defeat.

For the first time in her life, Blake didn't have a single word to react with.


	2. Chapter 2

"Does this place have pudding?" Neptune asked as if her life depended on it. Even without looking behind her, Neptune could feel Noire's patented 'I might kill you now.' stare. Neptune wasn't going to turn and confirm her suspicions; a Noire you can't see can't hurt you after all. Neptune was also too occupied by the existential question of food.

"Pudding?" The yellow haired girl asked.

"Yeah I eat it all the time but I think it's supposed to be a dessert. It's all sweet and jiggly."

"Ohh I know what you're talking about. I haven't had that for a while." Neptune was relived to hear her words. The black haired girl with the cat ears just stared in disbelief.

"Yang what are you talking about?" Said girl asked

"You've never had pudding Blake?" Yang asked but quickly changed. "Oh right, never mind."

"Glossing over why you want pudding so much, I don't think we have any here." Yang said after turning to face Neptune.

That was it. It was all over. Neptune collapsed onto the ground next to Noire. There's no pudding here; how could she go on? Pudding was her life! Maybe she could find some other food to fill the void, but it wouldn't be the same.

"There's probably some ingredients in the open kitchen if you want to make some." Yang sounded like she was trying to cheer her up.

Neptune stopped and stared at the words coming from the blonde. There was still hope after all! However one glaring flaw still remained.

"I kind of don't know how to make pudding." Neptune admitted to the floor.

"Ugh fine then. Come on Neptune I'll make some." Noire sounded irritated.

Neptune couldn't believe her ears. Was Noire actually trying to be nice to her? Was her inner tsun finally breaking down? Was it possible that Noire really cared for Neptune? All of this was lost upon her decision to tackle Noire in a hug.

"W-what are you doing Neptune?!" The twin tailed girl shrieked.

"Awww thank you so much Noire!"

Neptune continued to nuzzle the speechless Noire for several minutes until she heard someone clearing their throat.

"You two might want to umm, re-position yourselves. I wasn't expecting to see that much love or... uhh personal garments."

To say that the whole school heard Noire's screaming would be an understatement.

* * *

The quartet sans Noire was now sitting at one of the tables outside of the kitchen Noire was busy working in. The remaining three had decided to exchange information while they waited.

"So, Neptune was it?" Yang started. "Noire said that this is isn't the first time you've ended up in a different world."

"Well it's usually me not Noire. Protagonists luck and all." Neptune said like it was obvious.

"Umm alright then." This was weirder than dealing with Ruby on a sugar high.

"So what do you do in your world then?"

"You're talking to the one and only main character of the story! Murderer of monsters, heroine of harems, and consumer of Compa's delicious pudding!" It sounded like the lavender girl had rehearsed this speech before.

Before Yang could say anything, Noire poked her head and interjected her opinion. "That is only partly true. I wouldn't say you have a harem at this point."

Yang looked at Blake who just shrugged. "Is it that much weirder than us?" Yang thought for a minute. No they weren't too dissimilar. At least so far.

"Pudding is ready." Noire strolled in holding 4 cups of the dessert. "I made you two some as well."

"Thanks Noire." Yang said casually.

"I appreciate it but I'm not that hungry right now." Blake said with a slightly distracted gaze.

"Come on Blake, when was the last time you had pudding?"

Blake shot an blank stare at her. "Alright fine then, more for me."

The group broke conversation to eat their food. However Yang was too busy thinking of a way to get Blake to try the pudding. 'This is really good. How can she not like this?' Suddenly she had a bold idea. Carefully extracting a small amount of the food on her spoon she slowly made her advance. Blake was staring off absentmindedly as the spoon neared her face; she quickly turned her gaze upon Yang whose face switched from concentration to an apt imitation of Ruby's puppy face. Rolling her eyes, Blake took the bait and silently ate the pudding off the spoon. Yang focused on her expression and watched for the subtle hints that Blake did display. She offered Blake her own dish which had remained undisturbed and Blake quietly started eating. Yang was sure she caught a knowing glance from Noire but it might have been her imagination.

"Here Neptune, you can have the rest of mine." Noire pushed her half empty cup towards the purple girl.

"Yaaay! More pudding!"

"So Noire," Blake started after wiping her mouth with a napkin. "You seem a bit less... that." She gestured towards Neptune who was currently attacking the remaining pudding in front of her.

"Yes, out of all of us, Neptune is the one who is consistently crazy. Although some of us aren't too far behind."

"Well in that case you are probably better suited to explain what is actually going on." Blake reasoned.

"I can give you guys the quick version. Unless you want to be here for a few hours that is."

Yang gestured for her to continue.

"In our world, Neptune and I are CPUs; we each rule over our respective nations and are revered by our citizens. This faith which we call Shares gives us energy and can take physical form as a crystal. In addition to the two of us, there are Blanc and Vert. As for what we actually do, that really depends on the day and the person. My sister, Uni, and I spend our time doing political work and developing new technology. Blanc has her hands full with Rom and Ram, her younger twin sisters. Vert just plays MMOs and doesn't do work unless she needs to. Neptune here spends her time eating junk food and having her younger sister, Nepgear, cater for her." Noire finished with a slightly irritated tone and side glanced at Neptune.

"So it sounds like your world is pretty safe then." Yang said. Lucky them, they don't have to deal with grimm.

"Sort of. Most uncivilized areas have monsters running around but the guilds offer jobs to clear them out." Noire paused for a minute. "Occasionally we have a big problem like a terrorist group or similar evil group, but nothing like that has happened in quite a bit."

"We've got a similar situation here." Yang stated. "Outside of the four main kingdoms and a few towns, there isn't really anything. This world is full of grimm, evil monsters that seek negative emotions. Academies like Beacon train Hunters to go out and fight them."

Noire waited a minute and then remembered something from that morning. "You two said your teamates were gone right?"

Oh no. Yang had completely forgotten about her sister and the heiress. "Yeah my sister, Ruby, and her partner, Weiss. You guys were in their beds this morning."

Yang quickly pulled out her scroll and tapped Ruby's icon and selected the location feature. After a few seconds of loading it returned with 'Recipient Not In Service' and Yang started to get worried. Blake saw this and put her hand on Yang's shoulder.

'Don't worry, I'm sure they are fine."

"What's wrong?" Neptune finally chimed in.

Blake to the time to say Yang's thoughts for her. "Ruby's scroll isn't sending a signal back which means it's either broken or out of service."

"Ummm about that." Noire spoke uneasily. "If we woke up in their place, it might be reasonable to assume they are in the same situation."

Blake and Neptune spoke their fears at the same time.

"Weiss is not going to like that."

"I just hope Blanc doesn't hurt them, they sound fun."


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby continued on her path through the forest. She had a feeling that she was going the right way but no guide beside that. However she noticed the trees getting thinner in front of her and could see a glimpse of red. Hastening her pace, she arrived at a large clearing full of... strawberries. Huge mountains of her favorite fruit were piled in front of her and her eyes went wide. 'Whooaa.' This was the greatest thing ever! There was still a pull on her internal compass that said despite the giant prize in front of her, there was something else she needed to find. Diving into one of the mountains, which felt not entirely solid, she swan deeper below the ground. After a few minutes she fell into a small, dimly lit, cavern. It was mostly vacant with the exception of a small throne, upon which lie none other than her favorite ice queen. Weiss seemed to be in a deep sleep so Ruby followed the old fairy tale solution. She kissed Weiss. This woke her but the scene started to dissolve as Weiss spoke her thanks. Light bent into the walls and everything blurred together as Ruby returned to consciousness. She was groggy and in her addled state, decided to start nuzzling Weiss who was laid next to her.

"Weisssss, you're soooo coommmfffy." Ruby muttered into Weiss's brown hair. Wait, brown hair? Ruby's eyes went wide as Not-Weiss stirred and stared at her. Ruby swallowed. 'This is bad.'

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Not-Weiss shouted, her and Ruby jumping back from the bed. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

"Wait I can explainnnnnn!" Ruby trailed off as the girl lunged at her.

"RUBY!" There was a shriek that could only belong to the real Weiss. After a quick glance to confrim, Ruby used her semblance to dash behind Weiss.

"Weiss help me! I don't know what's going on." Ruby hid behind her teammate.

"Goodness what is all the commotion?" There was another, much softer, voice coming from the center of the room.

"These two broads were sleeping next to us!" Not-Weiss sounded very, very annoyed.

"Oh?" The other voice belonged to a blonde girl who looked a bit like Yang. She certainly had a similar figure albeit with a more elegant air about her. "Well who are they?"

Ruby poked Weiss a few times until she turned her head. Ruby gave her best 'I'm so sorry face' and Weiss shrugged.

"Well who are ya?" Not-Weiss had moved face to face with the real Weiss and they were staring each other down.

"Excuse me?" Weiss was using the bossy tone that Ruby remembered from their first meeting.

"You heard me, who are you?" Not-Weiss was starting to look very angry. This wasn't going well.

Ruby broke into the conversation. "We just woke up here. We have no idea where we are."

The other girls studied them closely. While Not-Weiss was still looking quite annoyed, she seemed to be calming down. Not-Yang looked more compassionate. Ruby hoped that her clueless and awkward attitude would make it more believable. So far it seemed to be working.

"So you two just woke up here?" Not-Yang asked

"Yes." Weiss answered. "We were in our room when we fell asleep."

"Like we're gonna believe that!" Not-Weiss was clearly not convinced.

"Blanc give them a chance. If they had any plan, why wouldn't they have done it while we were asleep?" Not-Yang reasoned.

"Hmmm. Alright fine." The angry girl, Blanc apparently, took a few breaths. "That does make sense."

"Sooo you aren't going to kill us?" Ruby asked, a little unsure of the sudden change.

"I'll let you live for now." Blanc responded. "But you two need to explain who you are and what you're doing here."

"Hmph." Weiss herself still looked annoyed. Ruby knew she hated waking up to loud noises. "I'm Weiss Schnee and..." She turned her head to look at Ruby who was still hiding behind her. Ruby put on her trademark apology smile. "And that is Ruby Rose." Weiss finished

"Hi." Ruby chirped. She might as well try to be friendly with these girls.

Not-Yang spoke again. "Well you two seem nice enough. My name is Vert and this is Blanc."

"I can introduce myself you know." Blanc glanced at Vert.

"Well I though to make a nice introduction but that might have been a wasted effort after they saw your vulgar side."

"Says the one who had no problem waking up next to some random girls."

"My Blanc, you're starting to sound a bit jealous."

'This is weird.' Ruby thought to herself. She and Weiss exchanged a glance as the argument continued.

"Are you two just going to argue or are you going to us where we are?" Weiss broke the argument as both girls turned to face her.

"You don't know what this building is?" Blanc asked.

"No." Weiss stopped as Ruby wandered off to look out the window. Ruby had never seen a city like this. Huge elaborate buildings littered the center and the architecture was almost alien. The buildings looked were smooth but also sharp at the same time. It looked like a old movie's vision of a future utopia.

"Whoa what is this place? These buildings look crazy." Ruby exclaimed in awe.

"The city?" Vert sounded surpirised. "My have neither of you ever been to Planeptune before?"

"Never been where?" Ruby was sure she heard something wrong.

"Planeptune." Vert repeated.

"Gesundheit."

"You've never heard of it?"

"Nope."

Now Vert and Blanc both looked befuddled. "It's one of the 4 nations in the world." Blanc stated.

"No it isn't." Came Weiss's voice. "The only 4 kingdoms in Remnant are Vale, Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral."

"Remnant? I've never heard of it. Is it some other faraway nation?" Blanc questioned.

"No it's the planet we live on." Weiss clarified. Ruby was wondering how these people didn't know what the world was called.

"What? No it isn't. We live in Gamindustri." Blanc sounded even more annoyed now.

The argument continued for quite a while, gradually getting more intense as Blanc and Weiss fueled each others competitive spirit. Ruby eventually took to standing next to Vert as those two fought. At this point they weren't even arguing about anything relevant, it had just devolved into fighting.

"So does this happen often?" Ruby looked at Vert.

"Oh my yes. Blanc has a fairly short temper."

"What is the meaning of this commotion?!" There was a new voice at the door. Turning around, Ruby saw.. a fairy on a book? She couldn't have been more than a few feet tall with blonde hair and wore a purple and blue themed outfit. She was followed by a nervous looking girl with long lavender hair in a sailor outfit with a similar color scheme. "Who are these two?"

* * *

Vert sat next to Nepgear and half listened to whatever Histoire was saying. Something along the lines of 'Oh not again.' The gist of the situation seemed to be that Neptune and Noire were currently missing and Ruby and... what was her name, Ice? No that didn't sound right. Weiss, that was it! Ruby and Weiss looked to have woken up in place of the CPUs.

"So where are Neptune and Noire?" Blanc interupted. "Are they in the old world where Neptune went last time?"

"Most likely not." Histoire responded. "It is possible, but I would have been contacted by the other Histoire. No I believe that they are someplace else. Considering these two..." She gestured towards Weiss and Ruby. "Have never heard of anything in Gamindustri. If we are to assume that the swap happened on both sides, it is likely that Neptune and Noire are in their world."

The whole table waited for that to sink in. This was an unusual set of circumstances. Last time Neptune had vanished, it was at least in a world that she knew. Now who knows what might happen.

"So how do we get back?" Weiss asked.

Histoire sighed. "That I do not know. Last time this happened, there was another me to contact. Without that, I can't initiate any type of travel between worlds."

Vert slid closer to Nepgear and side hugged her. She knew that Nepgear treasured her sister dearly and going without her for a long time was going to take its toll on her. Nepgear just sat there and pouted.

"Wait can they fight at all?" Ruby sounded concerned.

Vert took the opportunity to talk. "Why of course, all of us can fight."

"Well that's good. At least they might be able to replace us on our team."

"Team?" Vert was intrigued. "What kind of team."

"There's four of us. Me, Weiss, Blake and my sister Yang. We go to Beacon Academy to become huntresses." Ruby sounded very proud of herself.

"What does a huntress do?" Blanc asked before Vert could say the same.

"We go out and kill monsters and fight bad guys!" Ruby exclaimed.

"You two can fight?" Vert was a tad amazed. Ruby looked like she could do something but Weiss looked quite frail. However before anyone else could speak, Ruby took out a large piece of red metal that was on her back. With a quick flourish and quite a bit of whirring, it transformed into a large scythe several feet taller than Ruby herself. Weiss had a hand on what Vert just noticed was a rapier but it didn't look like she was going to show off.

"We don't have a choice other than to fight." Ruby was in a stoic pose.

Vert felt the warmth at her side vanish as Nepgear practically squealed in joy.

"Oh my gosh how does that thing work? I need to make one!" Nepgear's eyes were shining bright with pride. Vert had seen Nepgear's obsessiveness with tinkering before, but it was mostly self contained since the rest of the world didn't have much interest in it.

"Now isn't the time Nepgear." Histoire added herself back in with a scolding tone. "There is a bigger question that we must now face. Who will lead Planeptune and Lastation for now?"

Now that was a pressing issue. Of course the candidates could take over. Nepgear was leagues more productive than her sister and Uni was basically a smaller version of Noire. They had the skills to work but Vert doubted they had the confidence to run a whole nation.

"We'll do it." Weiss said. "We took their place, the least we can do is help."

"While that it generous of you, unfortunately a nation can only be run by a CPU." Histoire clarified.

"What's a CPU?" Ruby asked.

"A CPU is both the leader of a nation and a goddess. They possess immense power and are responsible for the safety of the people. Vert and Blanc here are both CPUs and Nepgear is a CPU candidate."

"Wow. So you guys have like special powers and stuff?"

"Yes. In addition to being more powerful than a normal person, we have the ability to transform using HDD which further amplifies our power." Vert answered Ruby's question.

"So if these other girls... Neptune and Noire right? If they are in our world, do they still have that power?" Weiss asked the oracle.

"Based on what we've seen in the past, no. That power doesn't travel across dimensions for a variety of reasons that I can explain later. In fact it is possible..." Histoire trailed off.

"Possible that what?" The white haired girl asked.

"There is a small chance that you two might have received Neptune and Noire's powers. Unfortunately the only way to test this is very strenuous. I can try to force run HDD on you two, but it will likely cause me to be knocked out for several days. As to what it might do to you, I have no idea."

Weiss and Ruby looked at each other. The whole room was watching them and wondering what might happen next. Vert was quite interested in the outcome of this situation. If it worked, then there would be two entirely new CPUs! That was unheard of in their world.

"We'll do it." Ruby spoke firmly.

"Very well. You might want to stand in an open space." Histoire waited for the two to move then closed her eyes. Small discs of light began forming around the two and Histoire was glowing slightly. Suddenly large pillars of light erupted around Ruby and Weiss, illuminating the room. After few long seconds, the light started to die down and Histoire started to float to the ground. Blanc, who was closest to her, quickly picked her out of the air. Once the light had died completely, Vert was able to see what had happened to the new girls. Even as a CPU herself, Vert was quite impressed with their new forms.

"My, it looks like you two will make great CPUs."


	4. Chapter 4

Weiss took some time to observed her new body. She was wearing a skinsuit made of some sort of synthetic material that felt like woven metal. She wore light blue boots with heels that floated a short distance from the boots. The boots turned into stockings climbing up just below her knees. Around her waist was a pair of very short grey pants matched with a very unusual skirt. The skirt was composed of about 10 floating plates that encircled her. These plates were shaped like a very elongated crystal and were made of another strange material that was a vivid orange and had elaborate blue designs flowing across them. Her midriff was completely bare and her chest was covered with a grey tube top. Weiss paused here and wondered for a moment. 'Did my chest get bigger?' She quickly filed that away to be addressed later and looked at her arms. There was more skinsuit material that traced patterns up her arms and stopped at her shoulders, allowing space for thin square plates to float. These plates were the same light blue as the rest of her outfit but had orange geometric details flowing on the top. Looking behind her, Weiss saw two large snowflake shaped wings that resembled her family crest. Running a hand through her hair, Weiss stopped and realized that her offset ponytail was almost as long as she was tall and it now faded to blue towards the ends. Perched above her head were a few small orange crystal shaped objects that formed the shape of a tiara with one of them extending down and stopping right above her left eye.

"Whoaaaa. This is amazing!" Weiss heard what she assumed to be Ruby squealing to her right. 'Her voice sounds a bit deeper.' she thought. Turning to look at her, she almost lost her jaw.

Ruby's outfit was significantly more covering than Weiss's. Rather than a plain skinsuit like the one Weiss wore, Ruby wore a matte black undersuit with various armor plates on it. Her legs were mostly exposed save for the black boots she wore with a few small red rose shaped objects floating near them. Her skirt was very similar to the one that floated around Weiss herself but was comprised of many black and red tubes. Weiss caught a glimpse of black shorts through the skirt, not that she was looking down there on purpose. Ruby's upper body had a black skinsuit that covered most of her with the exception of exposed midriff under red laces. There were many small plates of crimson armor on her sides that formed geometric patterns as they followed the curve of her body. Her chest was fairly exposed, to say the least, as her skinsuit had a deep v-cut. Floating above her back were several large elongated triangles that seemed to replace her trademark cloak as they pointed towards the ground. Her arms were quite asymmetrical, the left one kept the theme with a few plates of armor overlaid onto the black material that covered her forearm but her right arm was quite different. It looked quite robotic, possessing a gunmetal finish and was fully armored. Various gears and pistons covered it and there was a large tube that ran along the inside of her forearm before stopping at the wrist. Above each shoulder was a red crescent that had the same curve as Ruby's beloved scythe. Ruby's hair was quite different, it was now around a foot longer and the colors had inverted completely, deep red at the roots and fading to black at the tips. A pair of red half dome shaped objects floated above said hair and looked not unlike her hood.

"Weiss you look awesome too." Weiss felt herself blush a bit at Ruby's comment.

Closing her eyes, Weiss started to speak. "Thank you Ruby, you look..."

"Ohmygawd!" Ruby squealed so high, Weiss was sure it went beyond everyone's hearing range. Irritated at what had interrupted her from reciprocating, Weiss opened her eyes again. Weiss was not surprised at what had Ruby so worked up. Weiss never thought her partner's weapon could get even more dangerous but she was quite wrong. Crescent Rose now possessed not just one, but four blades. The fairly main blade looked relatively "normal" but it was now solid black and slightly larger. Right next to the joint, there was another blade perpendicular to the original that was a maroon color and resembled a form of Crescent Rose that Weiss had only ever seen Ruby use once. As if that whole system wasn't dangerous enough, the rifle system looked like it had gotten a upgrade in caliber. However the worst part of it was that there was an identical blade on the opposite end of the handle, complete with the extra war scythe blade and an entirely separate rifle barrel.

Weiss took a moment to look at her own weapon, hoping that the changes to it were less life threatening. Thankfully Myrtenaster was mostly unchanged. The hilt was now much wider to compensate for the much widened single edged blade. One of the prongs now extended well past her hand and on the reverse side there were two of the original ones now oriented at an angle to provide room for her wrist. The revolving chamber had shifted out of line with the blade and now was aligned with a small wedge shaped hole directly beneath the blade. Aside from that, the blade was also slightly longer and the entire weapon now sported a ice blue paint scheme with the exception of the revolving chamber and handle, both of which were red.

"Well this is certainly interesting." Weiss heard Vert's voice. "You two might have some of the most radical changes between forms."

"Do you guys have some sort of training ground?" Weiss wanted to know how her altered weapon performed.

"No, but you could go to the get a quest at the Guild and clear some monsters out. It's just down the street." Vert said.

"Alright. Come on Ruby, let's go."

"Before you go, you should deactivate HDD. It would be best to not reveal that Neptune and Noire are gone."

Blanc spoke up, "Vert can you take Histoire? You and Nepgear watch over her. I can go coach these two."

As Blanc gave the small sleeping body of Histoire to Vert, Weiss had a question. "How do we go about switching this on and off?"

Blanc sighed. "It's hard to explain. To turn it off, you have to be either very tired or you can just will it off. You just have to think to yourself to turn it on or off."

Weiss processed this for a moment and then tried it. She imagined her normal body and wished herself to go back to that. There was a long flash of light and suddenly she was back in her regular body. She looked next to her and saw that Ruby was the same. However Weiss couldn't get the image of HDD Ruby out of her head. Had Ruby always been that... attractive? Weiss stopped herself as she felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. She turned back to face Blanc who raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Alright come on you two, I'll show you how the Guild works." Blanc said as she walked out of the room.

* * *

Blanc watched to two new CPUs slice through monsters with ease. Not that this was a terribly hard quest to begin with. After showing them how the guild worked, Blanc decided that they needed something easier to get used to their new power. So here they were, in a ruin far from the city, mindlessly slaying monsters. The girls seemed to be catching on quite fast. Weiss was starting to experiment with the new functions of her sword which, as far as Blanc could tell, created a temporary elemental edge on the blade which could be launched as a projectile later. Ruby's scythe monstrosity just turned her into a garbage disposal, nothing lasted long against it. However the most interesting features were in Ruby's right arm which appear to be completely robotic. It seemed to be able to launch a sharp boomerang like piece of metal out of the side of her forearm and now possessed a large cannon that could be activated by flipping her wrist back.

"Hey, Blanc, you're a CPU right? Do you want to have a quick sparring match against us?" Ruby looked quite enthusiastic.

"Alright then. Don't think I will hold back on you two though." Blanc said as she stood up and cracked her knuckles. Activating HDD she took advantage of the momentarily disoriented CPUs and launched into an overhead smashing attack against Ruby. Weiss caught the strike on her own blade as Ruby quickly vanished into a silhouette of petals. Hearing a cry from behind her, Blanc dashed away from the two right as Ruby's scythe came down. She spun her hammer to deflect a few bullets launched by Ruby and parried a flurry of blows from Weiss. Charging at Ruby, Blanc swung her hammer in a upward sweeping motion and caught Ruby's weapon. Launching Ruby into the air, Blanc flew up and exchanged blows with her as they slowly floated down. Sensing an attack coming from behind her, Blanc flew up a few feet and narrowly dodged a flaming spike. She then rapidly sped towards the ground and charged her hammer with ice, creating a massive ring of icicles around the crater she had made. Jumping over this, she pressed her assault on Ruby who parried her attacks before jumping and shooting a ball of lightning from her arm. Blanc dodged out of the way only to be confronted with several large ice shards encircling her. Blanc summoned a handful of projectiles of her own and launched them with her hammer, destroying the ice around her. Blanc was running out of options, these two were too good at teamwork. 'Well here goes nothing.' Summoning the power of her EXE Drive, Blanc launched into and all out hammer assault against the two. Unfortunately, she only landed a handful of blows on them before creating another impact crater in the ground. She knew she was done now, she was far too open to an attack. Sure enough she got a glimpse of a fireball and green spike flying towards her before she found herself enveloped in a pillar of fire. After she landed back on the ground, she deactivated HDD and Ruby and Weiss followed suit.

"That was great! Thanks Blanc." She found herself being hugged by Ruby. Blanc was sure that she could see a hint of jealously in Weiss's eyes. Did these two have a thing?

"No problem Ruby. You two make a great team." Ruby broke the hug and opened her mouth to say something but now stared at something behind Blanc.

"What is it?" Blanc asked as she turned around.

"I thought I saw someone by the doorway but I must have been seeing things. Who would come all this way to watch us?"

After returning to the Basilicom, Ruby and Weiss both collapsed on the nearest furniture they could find.

"Uggghhh. Limbs not responding. Need food." Ruby groaned. Blanc gave a smirk at their state. While she was tired herself, she clearly hadn't pushed herself as much as those two. Walking to the kitchen, Blanc filled up a kettle and put it on the stove. Her favorite tea was laid out right next to Vert's. Speaking of Vert, where was she and how was Histoire? Blanc made her way to the guest rooms, pausing only to smirk at Weiss who was currently dealing with a sprawling Ruby in her lap. However upon inspection, the guest rooms were all empty, as was Neptune's. Maybe Nepgear knew where Vert had gone. Blanc descended towards the underground workshop that Nepgear was bound to be in. Stopping at the door, Blanc heard some very interesting sounds coming from the room.

"Higher Vert!"

"Like this?"

"Yes right there."

Furious that Vert would take advantage of Nepgear at a time like this and wanting to embarrass Vert a bit, Blanc burst into the room.

"ALRIGHT WHAT ARE YOU TWO... doing?" Blanc's anger trailed off as the situation revealed itself. Vert and Nepgear were both working on something. It appeared to be some sort of leg but Blanc really had no idea.

"Oh hello Blanc. Did you need something?" Vert seemed unfazed by the circumstances.

"I-I was just looking for you, how is Histoire doing?"

"Oh she's doing just fine. She's in her room next to Neptune's. I've got some people watching her."

"Alright then. Oh I also just put some tea on, do you want any?"

"That would be lovely, thank you Blanc." Leaving those two to whatever they were working on, Blanc went back up and knocked on the door to the oracle's room. As it opened, she was greeted by two familiar faces.

"Yaay, Blanny is back!"

"Compa, keep your voice down."

"Oh, sorry Iffy."


	5. Chapter 5

'Beacon has a fairly spacious cafeteria.' Noire thought to herself. Since it was now closer to an actual breakfast time, Yang and Blake had shown Neptune and herself to the massive mess hall where they ate. As Neptune was currently busy with a plate full of, everything, Noire was taking the initiative to learn exactly what the situation was. Thankfully Remnant seemed similar to Gamindustri. Monsters running around, albeit more serious here but still monsters. They lacked the same power that the CPUs had but apparently had unique abilities along with a protective sort of barrier called Aura. The main source of power here was a type of energized crystal called Dust. Noire had also been explaining a bit about their own world such as; the basics of the CPUs and what they did, some of the issues they faced, and how shares worked but Blake had interrupted her.

"So these shares are tied to people believing in you?"

"Yes. The more shares we have, the more powerful we are."

"Well if you two are here, and Ruby and Weiss are in your world, what will happen to the shares?"

Noire thought about it for a bit. This kind of situation had never happened before, nobody had ever switched places with a CPU before.

"Hmmm. I'm not quite sure. Even though we CPUs are quite powerful, we are far from the top; there are plenty of things with more power than us. As for your friends it's possible that they received our abilities. Shares are tied to the dimension they are in, so either they are just wasting away, or they somehow redirected themselves. In other words, there is a possibility that they have obtained our powers and responsibilties." Noire hoped that she wouldn't come back to a destroyed Lastation.

"Well it sounds like the main priority should be to get everyone back to normal then." Yang summed up.

"But how?"

"Well you guys said that you've been to other worlds before, how did you get back from there?"

"We had Histy and Mini-Histy!" Neptune suddenly chimed in.

"What?" Yang looked lost.

"Histoire is a magical person I suppose you could call her? She was able to communicate with another version of herself in the other world and open a bridge. Without her, I don't know what there is to do." Noire clarified.

"Well we will find some other way. Don't worry Noire, my main character status will make a path." Neptune declared triumphantly.

"Somehow I don't think that will help." Noire knew that Neptune had a big streak of luck when it came to important matters, but she had a feeling that it wasn't going to transfer over to this world. However before anyone could say anything else, they were loudly interrupted by...

"IT'S NORRRAAA!" The voice was coming from a pink blur heading towards their table followed by three other, much calmer people. The aforementioned pink blur turned out to be a very bubbly ginger girl who practically radiated energy and seemed quite similar to a certain wife-crazed girl in Noire's own world. The trio following her consisted of a girl with long crimson hair who wore bronze armor, a guy with a serious deadpan stare with attire that looked straight out of the other Lowee, and the last person was more of a boy with a mix of casual wear and armor.

"Hey look more people. Maybe you can make a friend Noire, then you won't be such a loner." Neptune commented.

Blushing lightly, Noire turned to face Neptune with her most annoyed face. "I do too have friends."

"Then where are they all the time?" Neptune replied with a smug look.

"They like to do work, unlike a certain someone I know." Noire shot back.

"WAIT!" The pink girl suddenly screamed again. "Something is different." She looked over everything around her with close scrutiny. "Maybe it's this table.. No wait, it's this plate."

"Nora.." The boy in the green coat started.

"NO I GOT IT!." She climbed onto the table and stopped a foot from Noire's face. "Who are you?"

"Nora please calm down." The boy repeated more sternly.

"Ok Ren." She then bounced over next to him.

"But who are you two really? And where are Ruby and Weiss?" The crimson haired girl asked.

Neptune stopped eating and stood up like she was about to make a speech. 'Oh no.' Noire thought. 'This can't be good.'

"Just who the hell do you think we are? We're the indomitable- buuhhh" Neptune didn't have time to finish as Noire decided she needed a nice personal view of the floor.

"That's the wrong series and you aren't helping." Noire said to the squirming girl currently pinned under her. Looking up at Yang and Blake she gave a nod signaling them to explain while she dealt with Neptune.

"So basically, these two are from another world and it seems like they switched places with Weiss and Ruby..." Noire zoned out of Yang's explanation and rolled Neptune over.

"Look Neptune." Noire said in a quiet voice. "We're in a totally unknown place and we have no hope of getting our powers to work here, so please try to be serious until we have some kind of plan."

Neptune stared back into her eyes and for a moment, Noire thought she was wasting her time. "Okay Bossy Heart." Noire rolled her eyes and ignored Neptune sticking out her tongue. They both stood up as Yang was finishing explaining the situation to the newcomers.

"Well then why don't we try this introduction over again?" Noire turned her attention to the ginger girl who was speaking again. "We are team JNPR, the equally great sister team to team RWBY."

"Ummm." Noire was about to ask a question but the boy in the green coat (didn't the girl call him Ren?) shook his head.

"Nora you're just confusing them more." He said. "In any case, my name is Lie Ren."

"Nora Valkyrie!"

"I'm Pyrrha Nikos."

Noire and Neptune turned to the blonde boy who had yet to speak. He looked fairly spaced out and was vaguely staring at them. Pyrrha noticed this and got a menacing look in her eyes.

"Jaune." She said rather insistently as she jabbed him in the side.

"Oww Pyrrha, what?" He looked confused as if he had just woken up. Pyrrha gestured towards the Gamidustri duo that was patiently waiting.

"Oh sorry." He cleared his throat and put on a cocky smile. "Name's Jaune Arc."

"Okay then. At any rate my name is Noire and this..." Noire paused as she grabbed Neptune by the collar and dragged her back towards the table. "This is Neptune."

There was a short silence until Jaune spoke. "Well I think I'll like this Neptune more than ours."

"There's another one of me here too?" Neptune sounded excited.

"Uhh no actually, you two just have the same name. He'll probably show up later."

"So what are you two planning to do now?" Said a voice behind Noire. Jumping up, she saw a older looking man with emerald green attire and grey. He wore small glasses and carried a cane and a mug of what smelled like coffee. Actually the more Noire focused on it, everything about him smelled vaguely of coffee.

"Professor Ozpin?" Half of the students said in mild surprise.

"I will need to take team... well I guess you'll need a new name won't you. Misses Xiao Long, Belladonna, Neptune, and Noire please accompany me to my office. I believe there is a problem that we must sort out."

* * *

Blake had never actually seen the headmaster's office before but she was quite impressed. The design was reminiscent of a giant clock. However all the aesthetics in the world couldn't help them right now. Although in the past, he seemed like an source of infinite wisdom, it seemed like he was just as clueless as they were.

"So Professor..." Blake started. "Do you have any idea where to start fixing this?"

"Unfortunately, no Miss Belladonna, I do not." He paused for a moment. "Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened before."

"Well than what do we do?" Yang looked concerned.

"If what Miss Noire and Miss Neptune have said is true, then we must wait. We have no knowledge concerning other dimensions and it seems like they do. So until then I would recommend you and Team JNPR show them the ropes."

Yang cracked her knuckles as they all stood up. "I think we can do that."

Before they started to leave Blake asked a question that had been on her mind. "Professor you said we needed a new name, what is it?"

"Ahhh yes." Ozpin said after taking a sip from his mug. "For now your four will be called Team NNBY (Nebulae)."

After leaving Ozpin's office, the newly reformed team made their way back to the dorms. Since classes were off for the weekends, they would have plenty of time to train in the surrounding forests. Despite their insistence, Blake was unsure how well Noire and Neptune actually could fight.

Yang on the other hand, couldn't be happier to go fight something. "Aww man this is gonna be awesome. We haven't had time to go beat up Grimm since Mountain Glenn."

"Should we see if Team SSSN wants to join?" Blake asked.

"You just want to hang out with your boyfriend don't you?" Yang teased.

"No! It's just that... well Neptune and Weiss had something going. I feel like we should tell him."

"Well why don't you go grab them? We'll meet you at the courtyard with JNPR."

Blake doubled back and headed towards the guest dorms. Sun and his team were probably still asleep, judging by their past habits. True to her instincts when Blake knocked on the door, she heard a bit of rustling before the door opened. She was greeted by a disheveled Scarlet David who looked like he had woken up only minutes ago.

"Ello Blake, just a sec." He turned his head around. "Hey Sun, ya girlfriend is here."

Blake saw Sun scrambling to get out of bed. "He'll be up in a tick." Scarlet said before closing the door.

Moments later, Sun opened the door. He looked to be much more awake than Scarlet was, radiating the same laid back vibe he always did.

"What's up kitty?"

Blake blushed a little before speaking. "There is a bit of a situation going on, we're heading into the Emerald Forest to go train for a bit. You and Neptune should come at the least."

"Wait what kind of situation? Is something wrong?" His voice was now concerned.

She beckoned him to come close and whispered to him. "Ruby and Weiss have somehow ended up in another world and there are two new girls here."

He looked at her like she was going crazy. "Well I'll bite. Yeah I'll go grab the cool dude."

As he turned back into the room, Blake grabbed his arm. "How is he going to take Weiss's disappearance?" Neptune did flirt a lot, so Blake was never really sure how much he much he actually cared for Weiss.

Sun thought about it for a minute. "I dunno, let's find out."

It turns out that Neptune really wasn't that fazed by it. Initially while they walked to the courtyard, he was mildly upset but he had quickly turned around. Now he was back to his normal flirty "cool" self. Upon arriving at the courtyard, Blake was surprised to not see anyone else.

"So you said they were gonna be here right?" Sun said as he stretched his arms.

Blake pulled out her scroll and called Yang. After almost ringing through, Yang picked up. "Blake?"

"Yang where are you guys? We're at the court..."

"Neptune decided to charge in after getting bored. We're fairly deep into the forest, try to meet up with us."

Blake sighed as the call ended. She opened the navigation system and set a waypoint on Yang's scroll.

"So I take it, something happened?" Neptune asked.

"It looks like we're walking. The new girls decided to have some fun."


	6. Chapter 6

'Man these guys go down like Dogoos.' Neptune thought to herself. The two legged things they had been fighting seemed to act as this world's cannon fodder.

"-to meet up with us." Neptune heard Yang speaking to someone. After a quick glance she looked to be hanging up her scroll. Neptune assumed that it was Blake or someone on the other team. Weren't they called JNPR or something? However she was quickly pulled out of her line of thinking by the sound of the irate blonde.

"Blake's on her way with some backup. So now we have to wait because _somebody_ rushed in on the jump pads."

In hindsight that might not have been the greatest idea. However since it didn't land them in a near death situation, she didn't care that much. To her, it was an exciting shortcut. To Yang and Noire on the other hand..

"Neptune why didn't you just wait for the others to get back with supplies?" Noire said as she stowed her rapier.

Neptune dramatically did her best impression of Noire. "Well I was getting bored and I thought you would want to do work."

Noire stopped. "Wait you were thinking about what I wanted?" Neptune only wiggled her eyebrows in response and Noire blushed. 'Jackpot.'

"Can you two hold the flirting until we aren't in a Grimm infested area?" Yang broke in.

"Oh relax. Those things were so easy. We must be over-leveled."

"Not everything is this easy." Yang said seriously.

"She is right Neptune, we don't have the same durability in this world" Noire reasoned. While it had yet to totally sink in, Neptune was aware that she couldn't take as much punishment as usual. She had already gotten a few minor scuffs from the fight.

"Oh that reminds me, you two probably need your auras unlocked don't ya?" Yang was stretching with her arms behind her head.

"How do we go about doing that?" Neptune and Noire asked simultaneously.

"It's easy for you two, I'm the one who has to do all the work though. Come on over here." The ex-CPUs glanced at each other before walking over to Yang who placed a hand on their shoulders. "Alright I'm gonna do both of you at once so I might pass out or something. Don't worry though, if I do, I'll be back up in a few minutes."

Yang closed her eyes and stood completely still. Neptune noticed a faint yellow glow emanating

from her whole body and felt a steady influx of energy. Looking down, she realized that she was also starting to glow with a shade of purple. A quick glance revealed that Noire had a similar blue hue radiating from her. Both of their wounds quickly vanished and the two of them looked renewed. Yang on the other hand looked completely exhausted and they both rushed to support her.

"Whoa. Haven't done that in a while. I'm alright though, just need to sit down for a minute."

Neptune did have something in the back of her mind though. "So that was it? No ancient ritual or magic words or anything like that?"

Yang shook her head. "Nope that's all it is. Some people do like to give a little speech while they do it but I never bother with that. Wouldn't make much sense if you could only activate it in one language."

"I suppose so." Noire said. "So aside from healing and acting as a barrier, what else does Aura do?"

"Those are the basics of it but you'll find out more as your go along. The big thing now is to find out what your Semblances are." With each word Yang spoke, it was clear that she was going to take awhile to be in any condition to fight. Neptune started to rummage around in her pack for anything that would be useful. 'Too bad I used up my last Nep Bull. Who would have thought that mattress surfing was dangerous?' But now she had an idea. It was a stretch since they weren't in a game but it was worth a try.

Turning towards the fourth wall that she was about to demolish, Neptune opened her mouth. "Hey whoever is reading this or whatever, can you please reload your last save and buy an extra Nep Bull? We really need it right now."

"Neptune now isn't the time for meta!" Noire was clearly annoyed at this turn of events.

"Just give it a minute..." After waiting a bit, Neptune checked her bag again and sure enough, there was a Nep Bull! "Wooo! Thanks audience."

"That seriously worked?" Noire was dumbstruck.

Neptune walked over to Yang and handed her the bottle. "It won't heal you all the way but it'll get you on your feet." Yang nodded and downed the herbal medicine; color immediately returning to her face as it worked.

"Thanks for that."

"No problem. It was the least I could do since I got us into this mess by ourselves."

"Speaking of, when is our backup getting here?" Noire asked.

Yang sighed. "Hard to tell. We are pretty far from where we landed so there I doubt Blake is going to jump in the way we did. Our best bet is to stay put since she has our location. The P2PL is bad enough in here while standing still, we don't want to start moving."

"What's P2PL?" Neptune asked.

"Our Scrolls normally receive data though the CCTs, big transmit towers that relay signals across the planet. Unfortunately they can only cover so much area so a secondary system is being tested. The P2PL stands for Peer to Peer Locator; it works by bouncing signals between Scrolls over a much smaller area. Essentially it allows us to communicate and use our Scrolls even when the tower can't provide service."

"But you have to stay close to each other, correct?" Noire asked for clarification.

"Yeah but it depends on the feature. Calls only work within a few miles, but the locator has a much larger range, even bigger if one of the Scrolls is actually in CCT service. Poor Blakey is going to have to play a bit of a game here."

"So we've got some time to kill then." Neptune said to herself as she wandered around looking at trees. Stopping in front of two with lower branches, she started fishing around in her pockets. 'Where is this thing? I know it's in here somewhere.' After a minute she found the small pouch that she was looking for.

"AHA!" Holding the item up in the air in her fist as if it were a legendary sword. She quickly unpacked it and started to set it up. She felt the unmistakable presence of Noire behind her. 'I wonder if I can get her to join me with this.' Neptune started scheming as she finished her preparations.

"Neptune what are you doing?" Noire deadpanned.

"It's a gift I got from Plutie last time I went over. I never had a chance to use it until now since there aren't any trees in the Basilicom." She replied while unfolding the fabric.

"What is it?"

"Just a minute, almost there..." Neptune dashed to each tree and tied a rope around each one. "Tada! One hammock ready for naps."

Truth be told, Neptune wasn't expecting Noire to be impressed. But at the very least she seemed intrigued by Neptune's sudden responsibility. If there was ever a time to get close to Noire, now was it.

"Hey Noire, you know this thing can fit two people?" Neptune threw a salacious wink towards the other former CPU and giggled internally as her face turned into an apt impression of a tomato.

"W-what?!" Noire was using her trademark tsun voice. "

"Ahh come one, hammocks are best with two people. You know I meant to take this thing out on a picnic with P-Ko for the first use. But now I want to share it with you instead." Neptune put on her most genuine smile.

"Really?" Noire asked in surprise. "O-okay then. But don't tell anyone."

"My lips are sealed."

The tow made their way into the fabric net and got comfortable. 'Ahh this is a great day so far.' Neptune thought to herself. 'It's not often I get to see Noire display genuine affection for someone other than Uni.'

While she was busy thinking other things over, Yang cleared her throat loudly. "I guess I'll take watch then."

"Yeah sorry I totally forgot you where here."

"Don't worry about it, it was funny to watch. You two really are like Ruby and Weiss."

Neptune rolled back over towards Noire and realized that the workaholic was already asleep. 'That's what happens when you push yourself kids. Oh well, it'll make for a great nap.' She wrapped her arms around the other girl's torso and closed her eyes and started to doze off.

* * *

Yang sighed deeply. Standing watch for 30 minutes had given her some time to think about a lot of things. She wondered what Ruby and Weiss were up to right now. Did they end up getting along with the people of that world? Are they doing anything together? Are they safe? There was no way of telling this and she was aware of that, but it still lurked in the back of her head. There was one additional thing she realized after watching her new teammates nuzzle each other in the hammock. Yang didn't want to be alone. While it was true that there were a series of short flings in her past, none of them really meant much to her. It certainly seemed that everyone around her had someone. Neptune and Noire clearly had a thing of each other, even if they wouldn't openly say it; Ruby had a crush on Weiss since they met, something Yang found out in one of their "sisterly talks"; Blake and Sun are wildcards though. While they obviously cared for each other, it was hard to tell how deeply it extended. Their first meeting was mostly platonic, all Sun had focused on was comforting Blake after she ran away from Beacon. The dance had solidified things a bit more, enough to the point where it was an inside joke amidst their teams, but nobody knew if they really were together or just very close friends.

"Alright seriously, where the hell are they?" Yang snapped out of her trance. She recognized that voice as Sun's. She ran a bit towards the direction of his voice and came across the trio in a clearing, looking quite irritated.

"What took you guys so long?" Yang asked sarcastically. She was quite amused with their expressions as they spun around to face her.

"Yang. I thought we'd never find you; the locator kept sending us in circles." Blake sounded quite relieved. "Where are the other two?"

"They're over this way, come on."

"So these girls, what are they like?" The Neptune from their world asked.

"They're... interesting. You'll see pretty quick." Yang didn't really know how else to sum up the new duo.

Speaking of, as they entered the area where the two were set up, it was clear that they were still quite asleep. However, now that they had backup, it was time to get moving.

"Anyone want to take the pleasure of waking those two up?" Yang asked.

"I got this." Sun said. He stepped forward and took a deep breath. "WAKE THE HELL UP! WE'VE BEEN WALKING AROUND FOR 30 MINUTES TRYING TO FIND YOU GUYS!"

"Alright fine!" Noire half-shouted back as she sat up. "You could have just poked me or something, you didn't have to yell."

"Well it looks like despite that, your smaller half still isn't getting up." Blake said. It was true, Neptune was still fast asleep or at least looked asleep. However Yang had seen Ruby's imitation sickness before and this was probably no different.

"Hmm? Oh give me a second." Noire leaned down next to Neptune's ear and whispered something. Whatever it was, Neptune shot straight up and looked Noire dead in the eyes.

"Are you serious Noire? You'll actually do that?" Neptune asked with an mischievous look.

Noire blushed deeply. "T-that's for me to know and you to find out."

"Ummm you guys know we all just saw that right?" Yang asked.

"Who's we? Oh there's more people." Neptune sounded excited.

"Yep. That's Sun and Neptune." Yang said while pointing to them as she said their respective names. "Guys meet Noire and Neptune."

"So you stole my name huh?" Purple Neptune asked.

"What? No I didn't." The blue Neptune defended.

"I came first you know, that means you stole my name."

"Alright enough, both of you!" Yang turned to look at Blake, the last person she was expecting to interject. "This is going nowhere. You!" She pointed at the blue haired Neptune. "We're calling you Poseidon from now on."

"But..." The blue haired boy sighed. "Oh fine, at least it isn't some dorky name."

"Dude you're Broseidon, king of the brocean. It fits perfectly." Sun said as he lightly punched the newly renamed boy in the shoulder.

"Well at any rate, I don't believe we've been introduced." Poseidon had his sights set on Neptune and Noire.

"Noire." The twin-tailed girl replied bluntly. "And you already met Neptune."

The aquaphobe looked crushed. Unbeknownst to him, but known to Yang and probably Blake, neither of the new girls seemed to swing towards men. True to his persona, he didn't let much show besides a initial look of disappointment.

"So remind me what you guys are doing out here anyway?" Sun asked.

"Oh yeah, we're supposed to be training aren't we?" Neptune said.

"That was the original plan but now I'm not so sure." Blake said

"Nope we're doing this; we spent too much time walking out here to turn back now." Sun sounded quite adamant.

"Well then where do we start?" Noire asked.

"Ozpin gave us the location of a large nest of Grimm; we'll head there and wipe it out." Blake answered.

"Well let's go for it then." Yang said as she cracked her knuckles. They started walking after Blake and after a while came across a large clearing with the base of a hill in view. Yang nearly walked into Blake who had stopped abruptly with her head tilted.

"Umm Blake..." Yang started but she was quickly shushed. Blake slowly turned around to face towards Noire and squinted at the sky.

"Noire you might want to move over." Blake said

"Why, is something wrong?" Said girl asked.

"Well I can't quite tell but it looks like..."

"YOU GUYS MIGHT WANT TO MOVVVVEEEE!" Came an increasing loud and familiar voice from above.

"What the- ugh." Noire's confusion was cut short as she was smashed to the ground by an all too obvious pink blur. Moments later, three of Beacon's rocket propelled lockers impacted around the clearing. Ren stepped out of one looking a bit shaken but otherwise normal and Jaune flew out of another and ran to empty his stomach in some nearby shrubs. Before anyone could react, Pyrrha landed in a classic hero pose as her locker impaled the ground behind her.

"Alright team! Great landing. Try not to vomit next time oh fearless leader." Nora added with a hint of sarcasm.

* * *

Author's Note

Well it's hit over 10000 words now. I really appreciate everyone that is reading this. I've never thought myself to be much of a writer before so this really helping to hone my abilities. I have quite a list of things planned out for the future of this story including new villains, more ships, semblances for Neptune and Noire (which I will put in a note after they show up first), a proper explanation for why Ruby and Weiss became CPUs, and much more. Again, big thanks to all of you guys, I'm glad you're sticking around to hear this thing unfold.


	7. Chapter 7

Ruby couldn't believe how tired she was. This whole transforming thing really took some serious energy. She had a feeling that things were going to get even more serious in the future. After all, they'd volunteered to run these nations for however long they were stuck. But the trouble is that she had no idea how to begin with that! She wasn't a strategist or a economist and she certainly was lacking in the social department. Although to be fair it did seem like everything was going a bit too far in their favor, why would these people entrust their nation to a pair that they had never met before? Where did these powers come from and why was it so easy to use them? Ruby had practically spent months just trying to not hit herself after building Crescent Rose, so how did she know how to use an even more complicated version of it? She sighed loudly. 'What's going to happen now?'

"Something wrong Ruby?" Weiss asked. She was sitting next to Ruby, leaning her head back on the couch.

"I was just think about this whole thing. Doesn't this all seem a bit weird to you?"

"Which part? The part where we are in a different world, the part where we are now goddesses, or the part where our adviser is a fairy on a book?" Weiss deadpanned.

"Oh right. But isn't this strange? I mean when I said we could take over the nations, I didn't think they would take it seriously."

"Well I'm sure we'll find out soon; for now we need to rest."

Ruby took this opportunity to stretch along the couch, resting her head in Weiss's lap.

"R-Ruby what are you doing? Move!"

"Nope."

"Mov-"

"Nope"

Weiss sighed angrily. After a few minutes of lying there, Ruby's hyperactive brain started drifting again.

"Weiss, what do you think Yang and Blake are up to?"

"Hmm. It might make sense for them to be training. If two new girls suddenly popped in to replace them, I'd want a demonstration of how well they could fight."

They sat in silence for a bit until Ruby realized something else and her eyes shot open.

"Weiss, how are you going to get dust in this world?" She asked with concern.

Weiss seemed surprised, apparently she hadn't thought of that either.

"Well I have a fairly good supply on me but you're right, I'll need to find some other source. I can't exactly rework my entire fighting style here."

"Hmmm, maybe there's some sort of replacement we can find or something." Ruby pondered. While the exact specifics of where dust came from or how it worked were mostly unknown, it wasn't a hard thing to process. Beacon students all ran through a Dust Technologies class which taught not only applications and formulas, but also how to refine raw dust in an emergency situation. Ruby herself may not remember every detail from that class, but Weiss as a model student and heiress to the biggest dust company likely knew more than Beacon taught.

"Well now I have to go deal with this problem." Weiss declared as she sternly motioned for Ruby to move.

"Weiss, you can't go do this now. You don't even know where to start." Ruby was now concerned that her teammate would get into something.

"Doesn't matter. It's my responsibility to deal with this."

"We're both exhausted. Trust me we can do this any other time, but for now just get some rest."

"Ruby-"

"Please. For me?" Ruby pleaded with her trademarked face.

Weiss blushed, if only for a second, confusing Ruby slightly but she conceded and laid down on the couch.

"Alright fine, I'll deal with this later."

"You're wrong by the way." Ruby watched Weiss's face morph into one of confusion. "It's not your responsibility, it's mine too. **We** will find a solution. Together."

The two both cracked a grin before settling down to go to sleep. Ruby was sure that Weiss would normally protest how close they were, but she didn't seem to care right now. All that mattered was that they were rested for whatever came next.

* * *

Vert and Nepgear were taking a break from, whatever it was that they were working on. Vert wasn't quite sure exactly but it was probably part of another robot. This was what Nepgear spent most of her time doing lately, research and development. The world had been at peace for quite some time now and the CPUs had been settling into a more relaxed life. They each had their own little projects to be working on. Nepgear was inventing a lot of new tech that was universal in nature. She had a philosophy of standardizing everything in Gamindustri, from plugs to disk sizes. While some of it hadn't taken off due to the competitive market, she had managed to get a few smaller things set as a standard. Lately however, she spent most of her time tinkering with machinery for fun rather than with a serious goal. Of course Vert had only gotten involved to spend time with her 'sister' who rarely wanted to be alone in a room with someone, save for Neptune or the other Candidates.

'I wonder if that tea that Blanc was making is done yet?' Vert thought to herself. 'Maybe I should go check.'

"Nepgear would you want to make some lunch together?" Vert asked as she sneaked up and wrapped her arms around the younger girl.

"Eeeep!" Nepgear jumped but quickly leaned back into Vert's chest. "Y-you know I can make lunch fine by myself Vert?"

"Oh but it would be fun with both of us! Us sisters can make anything together." She squeezed Nepgear even harder to emphasize her point.

"My -dness Vert! You're -ushing me." Nepgear strained out a few words.

However, before Vert could smother Nepgear into unconsciousness, they both heard the unmistakable sound of a boiling kettle. She released her vice on Nepgear and the two of them made their way towards the door leading upstairs. As they walked towards the kitchen, they were greeting by the sight of Ruby and Weiss stirring on the couch, evidently waking up from a nap after their training session. Vert was still unsure of how she felt about these two. Of course she had offered them support but were they going to be able to run the nations? Furthermore, how long was this whole charade going to last? Events like these usually were the start of some large scale evil plans, a trend that Vert hoped would break at some point.

"Good afternoon you two, would you be interested in some tea?" Nepgear continued to play the part of the doting host.

Weiss yawned loudly as she sat up. "Yes, thank you."

Vert grabbed several teacups from a cabinet and then went to go pick out the tea. It was a well known fact that Vert was extremely particular in the tea she drank, so she always had a stash ready. She carefully measured out the perfect serving of her exclusive blend. This tea was one of her own creations, made from several rare plants that were endemic to Leanbox. She had found them many years ago and since then had been growing a selection of them in the Basilicom. While she never shared this with anyone, she decided there was one person who could appreciate it. As much as Vert loved her, Nepgear wasn't exactly a connoisseur of fine goods. Planeptune wasn't exactly the place to find artisan meals, most of their specialties were fairly simple, albeit quite good. Lastation had a similar approach, the key difference being that Lastation citizens focused on making food quickly and efficiently. Leanbox on the other hand was constantly in competition with Lowee on the national level. Both nations were renowned for their culinary prowess and they held large tournaments for all manner of chefs.

"Do you need a hand Vert?" Nepgear poked her head in to the kitchen.

"Why yes as a matter of fact." She paused to pick up a pair of teacups that she had already prepared. It was one of Planeptune's most popular brands that had a soothing effect on muscles, just the thing the two newbies needed after a workout.

"Could you bring these to Ruby and Weiss for me? I'm going to see how Histoire is doing."

"Sure Vert." Nepgear took the tea and disappeared into the living room. Vert could hear her voice chatting with Ruby, most likely about Ruby's weapon that Nepgear had become fond of.

Meanwhile Vert made her towards the room where IF and Compa where watching over Histoire. After Blanc had left with Ruby and Weiss, Vert made a call to Compa since nobody at the Basilicom had extensive medical training. As it turned out, Compa had the day off and had run into IF in town a few minutes beforehand. Of course after hearing the two immediately rushed to help and had been monitoring Histoire for the past few hours. True to her instinct, as Vert opened the door, she was greeted with the sight of the person she was looking for.

"Hello Blanc, the tea is ready." She said as she handed Blanc a teacup. "How is Histoire doing?"

"She's getting better. IF and Compa went to go pick up some supplies, they should be back in a bit." Blanc said after setting down the book she was reading. The two of them paused to take a sip of tea and Vert watched Blanc's reaction closely. Her normally stoic demeanor broke for a few seconds as she processed the flavors.

"This is good, what is it?" Blanc asked.

"It's my handmade executive blend. Made with the finest herbs Leanbox has to offer."

"I thought you guarded this stuff with your life?"

"I figured you would be able to appreciate it."

"Ouch, my head." The two CPUs stopped their conversation and turned towards the small voice they had both heard. Histoire was sitting up clutching her forehead and muttering something to herself.

"Histoire do you need anything?" Vert asked as she knelt down by the Oracle.

"No thank you, I just need to rest for a minute."

"Histoire I have a question. What made you think that Ruby and Weiss had CPU powers?"

Histoire sighed. "It seems as if something very powerful is at work here. I doubt you two have checked share levels yet but Ruby and Weiss have as much as Noire and Neptune did yesterday. Whatever happened here was more than just people landing in other worlds. What worries me is that everyone in Planeptune and Lastation, everyone who worshiped Neptune and Noire yesterday, now worship Ruby and Weiss. Something or someone has altered the memories of everyone in Gamindustri. More than that, they also were able to transfer CPU power, something I've never heard of happening."

"So what can we do now?" Vert asked. "There must be some lead on how to fix this."

"For now all we can do is wait. Whoever did this must have a reason for doing so, we just need to find what that is. Our priorities should be training Ruby and Weiss to run the nations and establishing contact with the dimension that Neptune and Noire are in."

Vert and Blanc looked at each other. While they weren't slackers like Neptune, they were hardly the best teachers around. This was Noire's department, showing off your skill and pride, teaching others how to be efficient. However now they had no choice, they would have to show the newbies exactly what they had signed up for.

* * *

Author's Note

I'm finally back. Apologies that it took so long to write this, I didn't have a great plan for this chapter and had been spending too much time writing the backstory. Anyway in the future I will address all of the unresolved plot points and things that contradict the game's canon. It might be worth mentioning that this is set between the events of V and VII. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'd love to hear them. Right now I already have the two main villains planned out as well as semblances for Neptune and Noire, and a solution to Weiss's dust problem.


	8. Chapter 8

Weiss was quite unsure of herself right now. In the past, she had always thought of herself as a person who had a grip on her emotions and the situations around her, but that didn't seem to be true anymore. Weiss had spent quite a bit of her life looking out for herself and nobody else, but now she was supposed to run a country she didn't know at all. This whole thing was Ruby's fault! How could she just rush in like that and assume leadership without asking Weiss? However despite that, Weiss found herself confused about how to act towards Ruby. Many wouldn't believe it, but Weiss wasn't the ice queen that everyone assumed she was. While she couldn't forget the first few weeks of class and initiation, Weiss had long put that past her and was now helping Ruby as much as she could. Her methods of help may have been a bit unorthodox, as was evident by many arguments between herself and Yang over how hard Weiss was working Ruby. The truth was that Ruby didn't need to be coddled, she needed to be pushed farther if she ever wanted to reach her dreams. While this was in part due to the fact that Weiss didn't want anyone slacking on her team, she did care for Ruby and therein was the central problem. Since arriving here, Weiss had been noticing Ruby more and more for reasons she couldn't understand. Maybe it was because they were far from the social norms she was expected to follow, but Weiss had felt some sort of spark that she was unfamiliar with. While she knew the meaning of it, she was unsure of how to proceed with her feelings. It wasn't an issue of right or wrong for her, the Schnee family was actually very supportive, contrary to popular belief. Weiss and her father argued mildly frequently, but she was a teenage girl growing up under an aristocracy, so who could blame her? She would have to figure something something out soon otherwise-

"Weiss, get up! We have to leave right now!" Ruby bursting into the room shocked Weiss out of her thoughts.

"What's going on?" Weiss asked.

"The guild just got a call, a village in Lastation is under heavy assault." Ruby said as they raced down the hallways.

"How are we supposed to get there?" Weiss had found a basic map of Gamindustri earlier and Lastation was fairly far away.

"Good question, let's ask Histoire."

Speaking of the tiny floating devil, Histoire, Vert, and Blanc almost ran into them. Evidently they had just gotten the news.

"I assume you girls heard about Lastation?" Histoire inquired.

"Yep, how do we get there fastest?" Ruby was practically bouncing on her heels.

"Since this is an emergency, you should fly there. Here is a map that includes the area under attack. I will contact you if I sense anything going wrong but you two must hold out until the guild can send backup. Blanc and Vert, you two should head to your respective nations and be prepared for any other type of attack. Nepgear, IF, and Compa will stay here to keep watch over Planeptune. Good luck you two."

After a fairly long flight to the village, Weiss and Ruby could see large pillars of smoke rising from several places. Hordes of monsters marched towards the town square where the two could see intermittent flashes of light. The CPUs exchanged a glance before diving towards the action. Ruby landed directly in the front lines and started eviscerating monsters with her quadra-scythe. Weiss opted to offer assistance to whoever was fighting before them. Landing and clearing the monsters around her, Weiss got a look at the lone girl. She was petite, with vivid green eyes and white drill shaped hair and she wore a black skinsuit similar to their own. Her weapon was a comically oversized gun that was easily three times her size.

"Who are you two?" The girl asked incredulously.

"No time for that, let's get these monsters cleared out."

Weiss opted to hang back with the unknown girl and leave the front line work to Ruby. After quite a lot of mindless attacks from the cannon fodder, the monsters divided and left an open path. The girls exchanged glances but turned their attention to a loud whining sound. They all scattered for and form of cover as a blast of light barreled past the spot they had just stood upon. A large multi legged contraption marched towards them. It was low slung with a almost beetle-esque design but had a pair of cannons mounted on a humanoid torso.

"Now what?" Weiss looked towards Ruby.

"Just move quick and coordinate attacks. We've done this before."

Weiss prepped a speed glyph under the trio and they launched into an all out barrage. Weiss and Ruby alternated slashing at the target, Weiss constantly adding new elemental edges to her blade and using a variety of glyph based attacks, Ruby twirling her scythe and blasting energy balls from her arm. The other girl opted to offer aerial support by raining down energy beams and bullets. The machine evidently couldn't keep up and started spinning erratically until they severed the torso from the legged base, deactivating it. The other monsters had formed a circle around the fight but started to disperse after the machine had been destroyed.

"Alright I need some answers now." The other girl said.

"Right. My name is Weiss, I'm the acting CPU of Lastation. That's Ruby, acting CPU of Planeptune."

"Wait that doesn't make any sense, where's Noire?" She looked quite worried.

"Our best guess right now is that Noire and Neptune were transported to our world." Weiss sighed. "It's a long story."

"Oh no, Noire." She had visibly deflated.

"Do you know Noire very well?" Ruby asked, eager to try to help.

"Of course I do. She's my sister." She straightened herself out a bit. "I'm Uni, the CPU Candidate of Lastation."

Weiss didn't know what to say here, she couldn't imagine what Uni must be going through. She was trying to look strong and resilient but Weiss could see right through it, she was all too familiar with that look.

"Are you going to be okay?" Weiss asked as she walked up to Uni.

"Yes I'll be okay, Noire's been gone for long times before. My real concern is who are you two?"

"It's... a long story." Ruby replied sheepishly.

"We can talk about it in a bit but the important thing is the town. Where is everyone?" Weiss asked.

"Everyone is hiding out in the emergency bunker. They're a fairly common thing to have in settlements this remote. I was buying them all time to get to safety." Uni said.

"Well that's good then, we can-" Ruby stopped mid sentence and looked off towards the forest that the monsters had retreated into. "Weiss come here."

Weiss obliged and stood next to Ruby. "What do you see?"

Ruby pointed at the edge of the forest. "Right there, I think I see someone."

Squinting, Weiss looked where Ruby was pointing. As she saw a shape come into focus, her head suddenly exploded in pain. She cried out and clutched her forehead. The pain was immense but it was gone as quickly as it came.

"Weiss?! What's wrong?" Ruby immediately went to offer help but it wasn't needed.

"It's fine Ruby, just a headache. It's gone now."

"Are you two alright?" Uni asked, walking over to them.

"Yeah, Weiss just had a headache for a minute." Ruby answered.

Uni was enveloped by light for a minute as she transformed back to her normal self. She was a girl roughly the same height as Ruby with red eyes and long black hair that was tied into two sections on the left and right. Her outfit was a similar combat skirt to both Weiss and Ruby and she had a rifle slung over her shoulder. "Well come on then, we have go debrief all the villagers. But more importantly, I need to hear your story."

* * *

Blanc was currently occupied with a new fantasy novel to cope with the long ride back to Lowee. Normally she would just fly back but she wasn't in a huge hurry and this book had been vexing her for a few days, so she decided to take a terraportation ship. Planeptune, as usual, had the best technology and the ships were no exception. So with all that image, Blanc thought it was unusual that the lights were flickering and the smell of ozone was in the air. Despite the "terra" in the name, the ships were everything but. They were either sea based; mainly those between Leanbox, Planeptune, and Lastation; or airborne, like the ones that traveled between all nations. Blanc happened to be on an airborne ship and, despite the fact that the ship wasn't very high above the ground, she had no intention of it crashing. However it looked like life had other plans today as the ship went into a steep dive towards the ground. 'Well shit, this day just keeps getting better.' Blanc thought. She activated HDD and smashed out part of the ceiling and flew out mere seconds before the ship crashed into the capital city's plaza. Thankfully, as per the advanced technology, there was no combustible items on board so there was a lack of an earth shattering explosion. She pulled out her phone and activated the executive emergency broadcast, calling all available guild members and medical staff in the vicinity. Until then, she started slashing away at the crumbled remains of the ship in order to reach the surviving passengers. After a few axe swings, she realized that ripping the ship apart wouldn't help. Floating back down to the ground, she was swarmed by emergency responders who battered her with questions.

"Lady White Heart, what happened here?"

"Is anyone still alive in there?"

"What do you want us to do?"

Taking a breath, Blanc assessed the situation. "The priority is looking for survivors and treating them. Look for any type of emergency exit and open it, if we need to, I can cut part of it open but that's a last resort. We don't want to cause and more damage and have this thing fall apart with people in it."

"You can count on us, Lady White Heart!" Came a unanimous response.

Blanc stepped away to make a call on her phone. The recipients picked up almost immediately.

"Rom, Ram, are you two alright? Yes I'm at the crash site, I'm fine, don't worry. What do you mean you're almost there?"

Before she could process it, she saw pair of lights spiraling towards the downed ship. After pausing for a moment, they made a beeline towards her and slammed into the ground. Blanc was greeted by the sight of her twin sisters in their HDD forms, both looking concerned.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Blanc was annoyed, but mostly she was worried.

"We wanna help!" Ram said exuberantly.

"Yeah... help." Came Rom's meek agreement.

"This is a emergency situation you know, it's no place for kids." Blanc said pinching the bridge of her nose.

"But you gotta rescue the people inside right?" Rom asked. "We could help with that."

"Yeah, we can just use magic to take the ship apart and save the people!" Ram agreed.

Blanc was about to argue but she realized that her sisters had a point. They could dismantle the ship piece by piece without worrying about anything falling apart.

"Alright fine, make yourselves useful."

Blanc spent the next few hours debriefing all the passengers. After everyone was rounded up, it was made clear that, miraculously, there were no casualties. Blanc chalked this up to another over-engineered piece of Planeptune tech with a thousand safety features. Most of the passengers were citizens of Lowee that were merely returning from a vacation but there were a few people from other nations as well. However as of now, there was no culprit or explanation behind the sudden crash. Now that the passengers were all out, investigators could analyze the ship to see if it was a mechanical failure or sabotage. But that would take plenty of time so Blanc made for the nearest bookstore, determined to replace the novel she lost in the crash.

* * *

Author's Note

I'm back again. Sorry the upload schedule is so inconsistent, I'm back in school and don't have a ton of free time to write. Rest assured, I have no intention of abandoning this story any time soon. This first story arc is probably going to last for quite some time, so stay tuned until the end.


	9. Chapter 9

What had Noire gotten herself into here? At first she assumed this would be like any other quest, go into a dungeon, slay some monsters and that would be the end of it. But these monsters, there was no end to them! She quickly scanned around the battlefield; Team JNPR was currently fending off several of the human-sized scorpions fairly successfully, but they seemed fairly resistant to damage; Yang and Sun were occupied with the bulk of the monsters, a large horde of strange two-legged beasts that were little more than cannon fodder; Blake was swinging between two birds that resembled massive crows, all while Poseidon provided fire support from the ground. As for Noire herself, she and Neptune had decided to tackle the giant two headed serpents. That had evidently been a mistake as Noire found time slowing down as she watched a large set of fangs close in on her. She thought the last thing she would hear was Neptune yelling her name in desperation.

* * *

A Few Minutes Earlier...

Noire was slightly dazed at first but quickly recovered, she had long ago gotten used to being a landing pad. She quickly shifted and shoved Nora off her before standing up.

"Owww, that's no way to treat your reinforcements." The valkyrie quipped.

"You fell on me when there was plenty of ground to hit!" Noire defended her actions.

"The ground is hard, you seemed like a softer target." Came Nora's questionable logic.

This continued back and forth for quite a while until Noire felt a tingling sensation down her spine. Everyone else seemed to have felt it too, they all scanned the area, weapons at the ready. It took them all a few moments to notice what had changed. It was quiet, and far too quiet for a forest. Earlier, there had been birds chirping and singing, insects buzzed about every now and then, and leaves rustled in the wind. Now, all of nature seemed petrified in fear.

"It feels like... someone... WANTS TO SELL ME SOMETHING!" Neptune shouted as she spun around to find nothing.

"Now isn't the time." Yang said seriously. "We're not alone anymore."

The tension hung in the air like a thick fog, so thick in fact, that they all nearly eviscerated Jaune when he yelped in pain.

"What the hell man?" Sun questioned.

"Something bit my shoe." The knight explained, and sure enough, there was a large gouge missing from his right sneaker.

Suddenly there was a similar cry from Neptune, who also had a similar wound on her foot.

"Alright guys this isn't really that funny anymore." She unsuccessfully tried to diffuse the situation.

"I have an idea- Owww." Poseidon was interrupted mid sentence by a bite to his foot as well. However this time they caught a glimpse of a small claw retreating into the dirt.

"I got this." Sun said as he widened his stance and focused intently on the ground below him. As the claw came up to strike his foot, he quickly snatched it up with his tail and ripped it out of the ground. The creature was resembled a scorpion roughly the size of a large house cat. It was covered with a bone white carapace and a small yellow stinger rested on the end of its tail, the claws were very large and disproportionate to the rest of its body which likely accounted for the powerful "bite" they had been feeling.

"A young Deathstalker?" Pyrrha questioned.

"Huh, I didn't know they ambushed people like that. Guess I should pay more attention in bio." Sun joked as he readied his weapon to snuff out the creature. But after he pulled the trigger, all hell broke loose. Namely in the form of an attack by hundreds of other creatures that they hadn't seen due to the scorpion's distraction.

* * *

Present Time...

Noire snapped out of her flashback to find that, surprisingly, she wasn't engulfed by the mouth of the snake. Quite the contrary, it appeared that she was surround by some kind of wall of psychic energy or really strong glass. The snake withdrew its head, clearly just as confused, and Noire saw that as an opportunity to relocate. She quickly ran to flank the snake head that was attacking Neptune but a loud whine caught her attention. The shield that she left rapidly shrank and started to glow a bright blue before exploding violently, killing the black snake head and leaving a large hole in the ground. For now Noire paid it no mind and leaped onto the back of the white half of the serpent and driving her sword through the roof of its mouth. It collapsed and faded into a wisp of dust. The rest of the group seemed to be in a similar state, most of them finished off the last few monsters before gathering around the newly formed hole. There was a strong musky stench emanating from it as Pyrrha tossed a signal flare down into the depths of it. They quickly realized that they were standing on the roof of a large cavern.

"Huh, I wonder if this place has seen light in recent years." Jaune thought aloud.

"We should head back to Beacon, we can report this to Ozpin, he'll want to know about it." Ren reasoned. The group nodded in approval and started the long trek back to the school. But after only a few feet, Noire stopped again. Something still felt wrong. She looked around and saw that nobody else had stopped this time.

"Hold on a minute." Noire spoke. "Something's still out there." There was a long pause before anyone spoke.

"Oh come on Noire. Stop being such a worrywart, nothing would be following us after seeing us kick so much butt." Neptune said with utmost confidence. She waltzed over towards Noire, absentmindedly swinging her sword about until it suddenly stopped and a guttural growl radiated from the space of air next to Noire. The group took no time in processing this new threat, and Pyrrha's spear quickly impaled itself in the same space of air. There was a death rattle, and the weapons fell to the group as their target was revealed. The creature that had been stalking Noire was a chameleon the size of a car. It had stark white scales and a large, black, spiked fin on its back. Its head was covered in a similarly spiked black crest and the mouth was a fleshy void filled with teeth. The limbs looked fairly small and feeble for the creature's size, possessing three toes on the forelimbs and two on the back ones. The tail on the other hand accounted for half of its length and looked very strong by comparison. There was something peculiar on the end of the tail, a small crystal that the creature had been holding onto quite rigidly. It clattered to the ground as the monster faded into the wind.

"What the hell was that?" Noire asked.

"Nothing we've ever learned about." Blake stated as she walked to pick up the crystal. "How was it using dust? That's impossible."

"We need to get back to Ozpin, he must know about this." Pyrrha stated.

The group trudged on like before, only this time Neptune was much closer to Noire, almost circling her like a bodyguard. They had a long walk back, and they didn't need another ambush.

The hike back to Beacon was fairly uneventful, nobody tried to ambush them this time and no students fell out of the sky. Nevertheless, Blake was still quite on edge. She considered herself to be quite adept at stealth, she could easily disappear when she wanted to and her enhanced night vision and hearing made gave her an unsurpassed understanding of her surroundings. So the fact that a grimm was able to tail the group for who knows how long had really thrown a spanner in her works. More than that, she had read hundreds of books on the types of grimm and had never once come across something like that chameleon. New species aside, the fact that it could use dust was quite troubling. Grimm were no more intelligent than small animals, and nobody had ever heard of grimm using tools, with exception of Geist but they only used things like a hermit crab would use a shell. But aside from that, there was one more thing she needed to know.

"So Noire, how did you make that bubble shield?" She asked the other black-haired girl.

"Honestly, I don't know. I was about to get eaten by that snake and it just... appeared." Noire responded.

"Well then congratulations, you just discovered your semblance." Blake stated with mock enthusiasm.

"My what?" Noire was confused.

"A semblance is a unique ability that each person has. Normally they are unlocked with rigorous training or under extreme stress. Everyone's semblance does something different." Blake explained.

"So all of you have these abilities?" Neptune cut in.

"Yeah. I can create shadow clones of myself, Yang can absorb damage use it to increase her attack power, and Pyrrha can control metal, just to name a few."

"And now Noire can make energy shields?! That's no fair, why don't I get a cool power? You can't leave the protagonist behind like that!" Neptune pouted.

"Well not everyone has an obvious semblance. Some people just have more passive abilities." Pyrrha explained to the purple girl.

The conversation stopped as the reached the gates of Beacon's grounds. It was hardly recognizable as an entrance, it was a break in the otherwise smooth metal wall with a small terminal on it. Blake walked up and swiped her scroll and the gate started to open. They hurried inside and made their way to the headmaster's office. As per usual, Ozpin looked like he had been expecting them to enter at this very moment.

"Ah, you've returned, and clearly with something on your mind." He deducted.

"Sir, we found an unknown type of grimm in the forest." Pyrrha reported.

The headmaster raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Please describe it to me."

As Pyrrha recounted the description of the chameleon, Ozpin listened very intently. Blake suddenly remembered the crystal she had recovered from the creature's corpse was still in her pocket. After Pyrrha had finished her tale, Blake walked up an set it on the headmaster's glass desk. He picked it up and gave it a cursory inspection.

"What you encountered was an ancient grimm, called a Chamella. You would be hard pressed to find them in a book, most people have never laid their eyes on one. Their innate cloaking abilities aside, there haven't been reports of an attack for nearly thirty years. Unlike most grimm, they are quite smart and rarely attack humans. The ones that do often act as ambush hunters, waiting in trees to ensnare their prey." He explained. "One more thing; they also act as scouts, so if it was focused on following you, be wary outside of Beacon."

"Thank you professor." Blake said before the group headed back to the dorms. Team JNPR and Sun and Poseidon split off to go to their respective rooms, it was late and it had been a long day. Reaching their own dorm, the remaining quartet promptly collapsed on their beds. Shooting a glance at the other duo, Blake saw that Neptune was whispering to Noire about something. They both looked a bit upset.

"You two alright over there?" Yang asked, ever quick to pick up on people's emotions.

"We're just wondering how our sisters are doing." Neptune answered.

"Oh, you guys have sisters?"

"Yep." Neptune was quick to warm up again. "We each have a younger sister."

"What are they like?"

"Well Nepgear is a **huge** tech nerd. She loves making robots and stuff like that." Neptune informed. There was a pause as she turned to Noire.

"Uni is a bit of the same, she obsesses over guns and is just as much of a perfectionist as me." Noire said.

"Well it sounds like Ruby is going to make some new friends. I've never seen anyone so crazy for weapons." Blake quipped.

"They'll get along great. Who knows, maybe they'll even befriend Weiss. She's got a sister complex of her own." Yang joked.

"I just... I wish I could talk to her, and just let her know I'm doing fine." Noire was clearly broken up over this.

"We'll find a way, don't worry." Yang reassured her.

* * *

Author's Note

So at this point I have a lot more worldbuilding stuff planned out and not nearly enough content. I have gotten quite a few requests for some art of HDD Ruby and Weiss and I would love to fulfill those, but I am not a great artist. However I am working on that. If anyone is interested, I might could upload some very rough sketches of characters and the new creatures of grimm I am introducing and link that in the next chapter. Aside from that, if you want to know a bit of the specifics of Noire's semblance, here it is. (You've already seen Neptune's as well, she just isn't aware of it quite yet.)

Noire: Repulsor Manipulation: Able to summon a repsulor field that repels any unwanted entity in a small radius. Collapses after a short time, with violent results. Purely defensive for now, but with focus it could make a powerful offensive ability. Has a cooldown.


	10. Chapter 10

Neptune ran down the corridor, following the girlish laughter towards a fork in the road. She paused and glanced at both sides. The two paths were identical save for the lighting conditions. She took a few deep breaths and then continued down the dimly lit path, still following the saccharine laughter. She ran for what felt like miles into total darkness before arriving at a purple door. It was simple, hardly more than a slab of metal with knob, but it looked familiar. Turning the knob, the laughter ceased and the door slowly creaked open on its own. Ignoring the clanging noise her feet made as she stepped on the grating, she saw very clean walls. Elaborate designs etched in purple flowed across the white slate and around large monitors. As she took a few cautious steps forward, the door suddenly slammed shut and the screens flashed to life. Neptune shielded her eyes until they had readjusted and was greeted with the faces of hundreds of people. Each screen had a image of a person wearing Planeptune themed outfits, but something was quite wrong. They looked worried and were staring at Neptune as if their lives depended on it. The hallway seemed to stretch forever, Neptune could see her target standing about 100 meters away. Nepgear stood, smiling innocently as always, and beckoned for Neptune to follow her. As Neptune started walking, Nepgear turned to continue down the hallway and broke out into a sprint. Neptune followed suit, but as soon as she started, there was a unanimous cry from the monitors.

"Help us." Each screen pleaded.

Neptune ignored the pleas and continued to run after Nepgear. The further she got, the more frequent and forceful the cries were.

"Help us!" The monitors were no longer perfectly synced up.

She kept going until the walls started bending in towards her, and the voices were far too loud. She covered her ears with her hands and fell to her knees.

" **YOU PROMISED TO HELP US!** " They screamed at her.

Without warning, the floor suddenly gave way and Neptune found herself falling into an abyss. She screamed as she fell, feeling weightless and helpless. Squinting, she saw a small green dot farther down. As she continued to fall, it rapidly grew in size, now appearing as a glowing green square rushing up to meet her. Neptune closed her eyes and braced for the worst.

"Nep..." She heard a voice.

"Neptu..."

"NEPTUNE!"

She shot up quickly, out of breath and still in a panic. She took a moment to calm down and take in her surroundings; several beds, desks, windows with light pouring in. She was back in the dorm room at Beacon, evidently sleeping in after a long day.

"Are you alright?"

The purple girl realized she wasn't alone, the one detail she had missed, was Noire standing by her bed with a very concerned expression. Neptune ran her hands through her hair and sighed.

"Sometimes I'm not really sure." She replied.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Noire asked.

"Do you ever think of what might happen if we were gone? Like when Rei tried to attack, what would have happened if we weren't there to defend? Or the people we have to go save from monsters? What to they think when we vanish like this?" Neptune monolouged.

"Of course I always think of Lastation's citizens, that's normal for a leader." Noire stated.

"I know, it's just... what if that's all we're here for? To just shield our citizens from danger? If we aren't there, what is going to happen to them?" Neptune sniffled as tears started to well up in her eyes. "What if I can't save them Noire? What if they die and it's my fault?"

"Stupid." Noire muttered as she hoisted herself up to the hanging bed. Neptune felt arms embrace her and rested her head in the crook of Noire's neck. "None of this is your fault Neptune."

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Neptune softly sobbing into Noire's shoulder and Noire silently supporting her. Neptune was thankful to have someone there to help her. Truth be told, she had times like this but usually had her sister or Histoire to help her through it. She did her best to hide these feeling from everyone else, lest she sour the mood or drag anyone else down with her. Eventually she was able to calm down and at least partially return to her chipper self.

"Man, this is pretty embarrassing for me right now. Sorry you had to see all that." Neptune said sheepishly.

"It isn't anything to be ashamed of. Everyone has times like this." Noire reassured her.

"Even you?" Neptune asked. Noire nodded in response. "Well maybe I'll have to help you at some point."

"No you won't. I just work through that on my own." Noire informed her.

"Hmmm. Then I guess I'll have to find some other way to pay you back." Neptune said in a salacious voice and threw in a wink for good measure. The sable haired CPU was quick to blush: Neptune knew she had hit her mark.

"W-wha-at? What's with the face?"

"Oh you know." The smaller girl took advantage of Noire's stunned reaction, climbing on top of the bed and straddling her. "Teammates first, and yourself second right?"

However as luck would have it, Neptune never got the chance to retreat and laugh at Noire's reaction. Instead all of her attention turned to the unlatching and creaking of the door. Time slowed down as if they were in an epic battle, as the CPUs watched Yang walk into the room.

"Hey you two, we have... a... mission..." Yang slowed and froze mid-step. "I'll just ahhh, let you two get back to... whatever you were doing." She slowly walked backwards out of the room, but not before grabbing a stray sock and placing it on the doorknob.

"So I take it you guys are settling in?" Yang asked the two new girls who were fidgeting about the room, trying to forget what had just happened. After catching them in "the act" she couldn't help but tease them. Noire blushed furiously in response while Neptune had a much more subtle reaction. Her face morphed into a more somber version as she stared vacuously. However this only lasted for a second and she returned to her normal expression. Yang knew something was up but decided not to press the issue for now.

"That wasn't what it looked like!" Noire protested, still red in the face.

"I'm not judging, I'm glad you two are comfortable."

"So why'd you interrupt our quality time anyway?" Neptune asked, ignoring the glare she got from Noire.

"Oh yeah. We've got a proper mission now. I guess Ozpin is confident after our training session. We should probably get to his office now, Blake is already waiting there."

After they had all grabbed their respective gear, they set down the familiar path to the headmaster's office. Yang, once again, had to stifle a laugh upon entering the room. No matter how long she was at Beacon she couldn't escape one thing. Professor Ozpin's chair had a certain... phallic shape to it. Blake was keen to pick up on her reaction, throwing her a slight scowl.

"Ah, glad you could make it girls. A rather important mission has come up." Ozpin said in his usual tone.

"What's happening?" Noire questioned.

"It might be nothing, but I have a feeling it is vital. There have been reports from several remote villages concerning what appear to be meteor showers. We have a map of all reported sightings here." He pressed a button on his desk, activating a holographic display. The map showed a region southwest of Vale, relatively close to Vacuo. A cluster of 6 small towns formed a crude ring around a seemingly deserted area. However the blue dots that represented the "meteor" sightings were all contained in this empty space.

"These objects follow no previously known astronomical patterns and, as you can see, are clustered in this one place. I don't suppose any of you would know the historical name of this region?"

"It's the Catacombs, the site of the biggest defeat in the Great War. A group of faunus lured a battalion into the undergroud cave network. Only 18 humans survived." Blake answered in a somber tone.

"Very good Ms. Belladonna. More recently those caves have been known as The Nexus, a haven for criminals, gangs, or those wishing to disappear. Strangely, it has been completely silent for nearly a week. These unexplained meteors started two days later. The arrival of Misses Neptune and Noire, the meteors, and the lack of activity are all quite close and I suspect they are all connected somehow." Ozpin stopped his explanation to take a sip of coffee. Or at least Yang assumed it was coffee. Everyone had their theories about the headmaster and his coveted brew.

"So you want us to walk right into a criminal hideout?" Neptune asked.

"Believe me, I would rather you not bu-" Ozpin started.

"Piece of cake. We've done this plenty of times, right Noire?"

"You could say that. It's become a sort of specialty of ours."

"Very well then. I have sent all of you a full mission log along with priority 2 requisition permissions. Go to the office and pick up any supplies you need in addition to the usual kit. As for the two of you." He gestured to Neptune and Noire. "You should look in the armory for different weapons. A sword alone isn't going to do you much good here. You can work on making your own custom weapon after this mission." The headmaster concluded. They nodded and the quartet departed the office, making for the basement levels that held the armory and requisition office.

"So what did he mean about a sword not going far?" Noire inquired.

"Well, it's hard to be purely melee unless you are really fast." Yang clarified. "Pretty much everyone around here has some sort of ranged weapon in addition to melee."

"Such as?" She pressed.

"You've seen Blake with her weapon. That's a pretty good example of a typical sword. I've got shotguns and punching, Ren has bladed sub-machine guns, Nora has a hammer grenade launcher, Pyrrha has a rifle/spear/sword. As for the people you haven't met, Ruby has her scythe/sniper, Weiss has a sword that uses dust magic, Penny has a bunch of swords that can shoot a huge laser."

"I guess I see your point."

"Only person around here who just uses a sword is Jaune, but he has a shield to get close. Plus he couldn't really do that much better with a gun."

"So I can make my own crazy weapon?" Neptune asked excitedly.

"I guess you'll have to wait until we are done with this mission. For now you can make do with what's in the armory. We can help you train and test out anything that catches your eye." Yang said. Truth be told, she had never been into the armory, most students never went there. It was mainly used as a reserve for situations like this. There was also an unspoken tradition that held true in all of the academies. The armory was a shine that held the weapons of fallen hunters. These were off limits to anyone aside from the hunter's family and the staff.

"You guys go on ahead, I'll go to the req office and put our order in." Blake said. "Anyone have any special requests?"

"Pudding." Neptune cut in before anyone else could speak. The girl really must love that stuff.

"Anything else?" Blake sighed.

"We should take some of those super flashlights and a strong laser pointer." Yang said. The flashlights would prove useful in the cave and the laser pointer could be useful for signaling. But Yang also had other, more feline ideas for it.

"Okay then. I'll meet you guys afterwards."

Yang lead the remaining girls to the armory to check out the standard weapons that were in stock. There were quite a few basic ones here, sword guns, rifle spears, sniper halberds, railguns, flails, flails that launched bombs. Hopefully there would be something that fit the style of these two. Noire started meandering around the energy weapons section while Neptune was browsing traditional swords. Yang left them to look around while she went to stock up on ammo for her gauntlets. She grabbed a handful of clips for Blake before she heard Noire call her name.

"Yang, what is this thing?" Upon investigating, Noire was holding a plasma projector. Hardly looking like a weapon, it was a small U-shaped piece of metal with various buttons and vents on it. However Yang knew just how powerful these could be.

"Aww man, I love these things. You basically just hold it in the middle and use the buttons to activate different modes. Here, I'll show you." Yang took the device from her and strapped it onto her forearm. Pressing the power button, it defaulted to its standard form, a triangular shaped blade made of blue energy. It cast a bright light and a soft reverberating hum was emanating from the vents. Testing out the other buttons, Yang demonstrated that it could turn into a shield, sword, boxing glove, or a pistol that shot energy bolts.

"That's certainly more advanced than I was expecting." Noire stated with surprise.

"They're a fairly new technology. If you fancy yourself a tactician, they mainly rely on switching between modes very quickly to outmaneuver your opponent. Only real downside is that they aren't very good for stealth." Yang summarized.

Noire seemed pretty set on the plasma projector so they went to check on Neptune who had been browsing the swords. She was currently examining a pair of wrist mounted weapons that upon inspection, seemed to be short swords with built in pistols. Everything was contained in a armored bracer with a small winch and coil of steel cable. It appeared that the blades could be shot out to act as a grappling hook to hoist the user up, or to pull enemies closer. The blades were also retractable so the user could pass as being unarmed.

"I feel like I need to be wearing a red and white hoodie to use these things." Neptune said sarcastically.

"You guys good to go then? Or do you want to do some training?" Yang asked.

"Nah, we'll be fine. Let's go check this place out." Neptune rushed out of the room.

"Wait Neptune, you don't even know where you're going!" Noire said as she took off after the smaller girl. Yang smiled: they reminded her of Ruby and Weiss.

"Don't worry Rubes, we'll figure out a way to get to you."

Author's Note:

Sorry about the long wait, I really had no idea what I was doing with this chapter until recently. Now I've got a new proposal for all of you. Neptune and Noire are going to have to make their own weapons soon and I think it would be great to get your input on it. If you have an idea for one of their weapons, send it my way and it might end up in the story. I've also realized that switching between everyone like I've been doing is going to really limit how much I can get across, so I'm switching that up. From now on, I will stick with the dual perspective chapters, but they will stay focused in one world until that arc is finished.

As always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to offer some constructive criticism.


	11. Chapter 11

'Are these things always this turbulent?' Noire wondered while shaking around in her harness. Due to the rather immediate nature of the mission, they had been forced to take a high speed airship rather than one of the standard transports. Suffice to say after getting strapped in, they had been in for some chop. The ship wasn't really meant to land, it was more of a glorified missile, so they were going to have to airdrop a few miles away from the caves. Speaking of the drop, they heard a loud buzz and the pilot's voice came on over the intercom.

"20 seconds to drop! Everyone get ready!" Noire double checked her drop pod and braced herself. A green light illuminated the pod above her.

"5! 4! 3! 2! 1!" There was a sharp grating sound of metal on metal and Noire was yanked against her harness as the pod dropped. She tried to focus on the monitor screen as she was being thrown about.

Yang's voice snapped on over the pod communicator. "How are you guys holding up?" Noire was about to respond before she heard Neptune.

"THIS IS AWESOMMMMEEEEEE!"

"I've been better." Noire voiced her discomfort.

"Alright well we've got about 5000 feet until we land, so get ready." Yang informed. Sure enough Noire could see her altitude dropping rapidly on the monitor. 4500 feet. 4000. 3000. 2000. 1000. 500. She tensed her body as the pod's gravity assist kicked in, causing her to rapidly slow down. Her velocity dropped to about 20 feet per second. The pod jerked about as it hit the ground, leaning backwards. Noire exhaled, relieved that she had a safe landing. She looked at the ground scanner and it showed that she had landed precariously balancing on the edge of a tall cliff. As she unbuckled the harness, she felt the pod shift backwards further and scrape across the ground. Moving quickly, she grabbed her weapon and supplies before starting to arm the door bolts. With all the bolts armed, she grabbed onto a small handle on the door and hit the detonate switch. She was violently thrown into the air and let go of the door as she got a face full of sand. She pushed herself up and went to investigate the pod. It had fallen quite a bit before slamming into the ground. From her vantage point, Noire could see the shape of 2 other pods that had landed on the flat ground. Unfortunately, she was very high up and walking down through the sand would take quite awhile. Noire hoisted her supply pack and slid her weapon onto her arm, then stopped. She had an idea. Activating the plasma projector's shield mode, she brought the large plasma field down onto the sand and watched. True to her expectations, the sand quickly melted and turned into a cloudy glass-like slag. Noire smirked and took a running start and jumped several feet off the ground. She activated the shield again, positioning herself to land on it. As she hit the ground her body flinched a bit but she continued to glide down the hill, leaving a trail of glass behind her. As she approached the other two pods, she heard the telltale sounds of Yang's punches. Noire deactivated her shield and sprinted towards the noise, thanking that she was wearing one of her alternate outfits that was significantly less covering. The blistering heat of the desert would take a toll on them very quickly. Continuing along her path, Noire was quick to see Yang punching one of the pods that appeared to be shut.

"YANG!" She yelled. "What's wrong?"

Yang stepped back and wiped her forehead. "Blake's pod is jammed, I can't get it open." Noire moved closer to investigate and sure enough, the frame had deformed in one spot.

"I think I can get this open." Noire said as she pressed the sword button of her weapon. Jamming it into the broken frame, it slowly started to glow a dull red before melting completely. Yang ripped the door off and scooped Blake out of the pod. Blake coughed a bit, evidently from the smoke that the melting door had caused, before settling down.

"You can put me down now Yang." She said with a deadpan voice.

"Huh? Oh right." The two straightened themselves out.

"Has anyone heard from Neptune?" Noire asked with concern. "I wasn't able to see her pod anywhere.

"No, but I haven't tried to raise her. We can use Yang's pod to call her." Noire nodded and ran over to the other pod that was still intact. She was about to press the communicator button before noticing that the monitor showed damage to Pods One, Three, and Four. Pod One was Blake's, Noire's had been Four, and Neptune's was Three. Under Pod Three, there was a notification that read "Communications Disabled". Worried, Noire ran back to Blake and Yang.

"Her pod is damaged, we can't contact her." Noire explained.

Yang sighed. "Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be fin-" She was interrupted by Blake covering her mouth. The faunus raised a finger and pointed towards a nearby sand dune. The three readied their weapons and prepared for a fight. Noire heard a slight rustling noise and saw parts of the sand shift about before the ground shuddered. A large scorpion like creature burst out of the sand screeching loudly. It was similar to the scorpions they had fought before, but it was clearly a different species. Its body was much thinner but was completely encased in bone white armor. It had very long spindly legs, but kept itself close to the ground rather than stand at its full height. In place of the claws of the other species, this one had large spiked clubs affixed to its front legs. However the most unique feature was a very long whip-like tail in place of a stinger. Said tail was currently wrapped around none other than Neptune.

"HEEELLLLLPPPPPP!" Neptune screamed as she was thrown back and forth by the scorpion.

"Distract it! I'll get Neptune." Blake said as she took off running towards the side of the creature. Noire and Yang charged at the beast and attacked its exposed eyes. The creature let out a screech and raised both club arms before bringing them down sharply. Noire saw this and tackled Yang, shifting her weapon into a shield. The spikes came down and bounced off the plasma field, evidently confusing the grimm. Noire and Yang both took the initiative and retreated to a safe position before attacking with their respective ranged attacks. Noire could see Blake shoot her gun towards a leg and use it to swing up above the creature. She delivered a sharp slash to the middle of the tail, damaging it enough for it to fling Neptune into the ground. Blake landed next to her and pulled her out of the sand. After they had regrouped the creature started to switch tactics, now opting to strike at them with its tail.

"Soo anybody got a plan here?" Yang asked as they all blocked the attacks.

"The armor is too thick for our weapons, we're going to have to do something else." Blake informed them.

"Let's knock it over!" Neptune said. They all exchanged a glance and shrugged. Nobody else had anything better. Neptune and Noire went in to attack while Blake and Yang waited and supported them from afar. Neptune went for a few quick attacks on the eyes, paving the way for Noire to uppercut it with the plasma projector's boxing mode. The scorpion lurched violently and then stood up with its legs fully extended, now around 25 feet tall. It lowered the spiked clubs and walked forward steadily, swinging them back and forth. The Gamindustri duo ran back towards their teammates and Neptune waved her hand. Yang got a running start while holding Gambol Shroud's ribbon and used her gauntlets to propel herself faster. As she reached her maximum speed, Blake pulled the ribbon tight; this caused Yang to encircle the arachnid's legs and ensnare it. It screeched again as it tumbled towards the ground, landing upside down.

"Hit anything that looks weak!" Noire shouted as they charged the now defenseless creature. Yang and Blake were already atop it and Neptune and Noire moved to join them. The scorpion let out a gurgling noise before spitting a greenish glob at Noire who quickly maneuvered out of the way. She looked behind her and saw the liquid sizzling as it burned through the sand. Suddenly, the tail sprung out of the ground next to Noire and wrapped around her leg. She closed her eyes and took a breath as she was pulled underground and dragged through the sand before emerging next to where Yang and Blake were standing. Noire saw Yang grab onto the tail below her as they were pulled up into the air. Yang motioned for Noire to cut the tail and she obliged. They were then thrown further up as Yang prepared to do something. Noire saw Yang take aim directly at her and she raised her shield instinctively. Yang fired and Noire was launched down with substantial force. As she fell, Noire twisted herself so her shield was facing down as if to cushion the landing. She landed directly on the creature's underside, cracking the armor with the force of her fall. Hearing more gunshots, Noire jumped off the creature as did Blake. They turned just in time to see Yang smash into the dent Noire had left in the armor, this time clearly doing internal damage. The scorpion shrieked and then laid there, unmoving as it started to fade into smoke.

"Thanks for the warning Yang." Noire said irritated.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Yang said. "Now what?" Blake rummaged through her supply kit and pulled out a map and compass. She studied it for a few seconds, glancing intermittently at nearby landmarks.

"Looks like the cave entrance is about a mile and a half north of here. We should be able to get there pretty quickly."

"Let's go then!" Neptune exclaimed and took off running.

"Neptune... that's south." Blake informed her.

* * *

Blake sighed as the group continued on their trek. They had reached their destination awhile ago, but someone had gone through a lot of trouble to hide the entrance. It was somewhere on the side of a rather large mountain of sand; key word, somewhere. For now, they had just been circling it while Neptune and Noire argued about nothing. Blake stopped walking and looked at the map again. Was there anything Ozpin could have left them as a hint? There was a small phrase scribbled onto the paper in the corner. 'Use Neptune.' What?

"Yang, come here." Blake called. Yang stopped her conversation with the other two and ran over.

"'Sup?"

"Take a look at this." Blake showed her the note. "Any idea what he means?"

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." Yang hummed for a long time.

"You don't have any idea, do you?" Blake deadpanned.

"HMMMMMMMMMMMMM." Yang repeated even louder. 'Well she isn't going to be much help. Come one Belladonna, think!' Blake continued her inner monologue for a bit. 'Wait.' She turned to face Neptune and Noire who were walking over to investigate. Blake had seen firsthand just how lucky Neptune had gotten in the past, particularly against the chameleon. Yang had also testified, saying that she had "ripped the fourth wall a new one."

"Noire come here." Blake requested. The other black haired girl picked up her pace.

"Did you find something?" She queried.

"In a manner of speaking. But first I have a question, has Neptune always seemed unnaturally lucky?"

"Absolutely. If she played the lottery, she would have won about 5 times by now. Why?"

Blake looked at Neptune as she idly flitted about. 'Luck huh?' It wasn't unheard of as a semblance. But there was no real way to test it. Blake bent down to pick up a nearby rock.

"Neptune, catch!" She called as she tossed the rock to the other girl. Neptune caught it and turned it over in her hand. Blake walked over to explain her idea.

"Is there something important about this rock?"

Blake shook her head. "This is probably going to sound stupid, but I want you to throw it at that dune." She motioned towards the large mound that concealed the entrance to the Nexus. Neptune gave her a questioning look and shrugged. She cocked her arm back and squinted before whipping the rock at the dune. It sailed in a flat parabolic arc before burying itself in the sand.

"Alright everyone, let's get digging." Blake said as she pulled out her collapsible shovel from her survival kit. The rest of the group followed suit before looking at her questioningly.

"How is this supposed to help anything?" Noire asked.

"Just trust me on this one. I think I'm onto something." Blake buried her shovel into the sand next to the rock and started to excavate the area. After about ten shovels of sand, she struck something that let out a muffled clang. That spurred everyone's attention and they quickly went to her aid. They worked for few minutes and were rewarded with a large steel door that had been painted a light tan. They all exchanged a glance before all eyes turned to Neptune.

"Whaaa? How did I do that?" Said girl was puzzled.

"Neptune, I'm pretty confident that your semblance is luck. You can't turn it on or off, but you just get exceptionally good fortune." Blake explained.

"Huh. Well that's a fitting power for a protagonist like me." Neptune remarked with a smirk.

"At any rate, we should get into these caves. The quicker we move, the better." Noire said. Blake nodded and went to examine the door. It was a textured metal slab with no keyholes or visible openings, save for a small metal handle. Blake gave it a hefty pull and it slowly creaked open, revealing a pitch black tunnel that was only about eight feet high. Her keen night vision could make out many other details, the floor was ground fairly smooth, the walls remained as jagged rock, and there were no lights to be seen.

Yang poked her head in to examine. "It's really dark in there. Nice thing you have good eyes kitten."

Blake rolled her eyes at Yang's attempt to tease her. "Funny, I was thinking we could use your hair as a torch."

"Hey! My locks aren't a tool." The blonde's aforementioned hair glowed slightly in response to her heightened emotions. Blake smirked in response. Yang did have a point though, if they were going to use stealth, they couldn't use the flashlights they brought.

"Okay, here's the deal. We can't use bright light without revealing ourselves, so everyone use the red setting on your flashlights. I'll lead the way and keep an ear out for anything approaching us. Last one in, get the door." Blake summarized before heading into the tunnel system. The darkness surrounded them as Noire shut the door and only the dim red glow of flashlights illuminated the walls. The caves soon branched off into multiple tunnels without any markings or signs: the others stopped at this fork, confused as to which way to go. Blake just kept walking down one of the paths.

"Blake how do you know which way to go?" Yang asked. Blake bent down and picked up the object that had tipped her off, a lone shell casing.

"Something happened here, but it's been cleaned up. Mostly. Besides, I've been here before." The group halted again at her words but quickly rejoined her.

"I thought this place was for criminals?" Noire asked.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Blake answered.

"Soooo, does that make you a bad guy?" Neptune cut in.

The faunus sighed. "Not anymore. I used to come here after some crimes, but not for a long time."

"If you were a criminal, how can we trust you?" Noire narrowed her eyes as she spoke.

"You can trust her." Yang said before Blake could open her mouth. There was an awkward silence before Blake spoke again.

"This place has a very long history. During the Great War there was a massive battle, but there was much more after that. It was one of the first places where faunus could live away from humans and have their own lives. My parents brought me here when I was a little girl and it was in much better shape back then. There was a monument for the battle, a bustling marketplace, and children playing everywhere. This was where I realized how much being a faunus meant to me." She could still remember how nice it looked. Homes were carved into the rock, lights were strung up along streets, and everyone was always friendly. She remembered her parents buying her a history book from a bookstore and running into a puma faunus who was equally obsessed with books. She also remembered how it fell into it's current state. When Menagerie was officially set aside for faunus, many of them left the cold dark of the caves. Only a few stragglers remained before it became the criminal haven it was today.

"Blake, you alright there?" Yang said, grabbing her shoulder. "You just kinda stopped."

"Sorry." She said, wiping a lone tear from her eye. "It's just sad to see it like this." Yang hugged her in response.

"Don't be sorry, I can tell this means a lot to you." Yang flashed her a smile as they broke the hug.

"Anyway, this place wouldn't have gone down without a large fight. Whoever took it must have had quite the army. Stay on guard." She advised. They continued further into the complex, spotting more and more signs of battle along the way. After quite awhile, the tunnel started to widen and Blake could make out the edge of a dimly lit area.. She was about to head through but stopped when her ears picked up the distant sound of voices. She signaled for the group to get down and take cover behind a large boulder. Off in the distance were a pair of sweeping beams of light that moved down towards the clearing. 'Scouts' Blake thought.

"Alright, here's the plan." She whispered to the other girls. "Noire and I will sneak up behind them and signal you when we're in position. When we do, walk around here and make some noise. We will knock them out and steal their uniforms." The others nodded in response. Blake crept along through the dimly lit areas. She now realized that this clearing was the remains of the old city. Noire followed her as she shimmied up onto a rooftop. The two scouts were patrolling in the street directly beneath them, heading away from the rock where Yang and Neptune were waiting. Blake tapped Noire and nodded. Noire activated the sword form of her weapon, casting a sharp blue light above her. The guards didn't notice, but Yang and Neptune quickly started talking very loudly. The guards turned around and started jogging towards the rock. Blake jumped of the roof and Noire followed suite; both delivering a kick to the back of each guard. They fell over and the two hoisted them up and carried them into a nearby building. The two quickly began stripping the guards of their uniforms, but Blake stopped as she felt a gun barrel press against her temple. She froze and looked at the unknown assailant out of the corner of her eye. Male, average height and build, small pieces of improvised metal armor.

"Now why don't you ladies just turn and go right back out of here?" The man spoke in a gravelly voice. Noire jumped up, the blue glow of her sword illuminating the room.

"And just why do you think we would do that?" Noire challenged.

"Because I'm the one with a gun to your friend." He responded. Blake took this pause to use her semblance, leaving a clone in the man's grip and teleporting behind him. She grabbed his arm and quickly gained the upper hand, with Gambol Shroud's blade mere inches from his throat.

"Drop your weapon." She commanded. The man groaned but obeyed, tossing his pistol on the floor where Noire retrieved it. Blake let the man go, scanning him again in closer detail. He didn't have a uniform like the guards and had long, unkempt hair. His hands were gnarled and he was missing his right pinkie finger.

"Who are you?" Blake asked. "You clearly aren't one of the guards, what are you doing here?"

The man sighed and sat down on a nearby chair. "You can call me Mauve, that's all anyone calls me anymore. I used to live down here before the attack. I was a hunter, not the fancy type mind you, I would go out and bring back food to sell to the wanderers that came through. During the attack, I managed to hide in a nearby safehouse. I've been trapped down here ever since, living of preserved food and scouting around the tunnels." After he finished his explanation, Yang and Neptune walked into the house and saw what was going on.

"Who's this guy?" Neptune asked.

"A survivor from the town." Noire responded.

Blake turned back to Mauve. "Is there anything you can tell us about this group? What have they been doing down here? Where is their main base?"

"There's a large complex further down the tunnels, but I can't tell you much more than that. All I know is that they go out at night on these hover skiffs and come back with some cargo."

"Hold up, if you've been stuck down here this whole time, why didn't you try to escape?" Yang asked.

"I wouldn't get very far if I did. Without a vehicle, you won't get far in this desert. If the heat doesn't get you, the grimm will. Big scorpion looking things, they hunt based on vibrations in the ground."

"We'll get you out of here, don't worry." Neptune cut in.

"Who are you girls anyway? You look too clean to be criminals."

"We're students from Beacon Academy." Yang answered.

"Look, we can explain more later, but we're in a bit of a hurry. Do you know the way back to cave entrance?" Blake asked.

"Of course."

"Go wait there. We'll meet you on our way out and you can hitch a ride with us."

The man nodded and went to exit the house, stopping at the door. He looked at Noire who still held his weapon.

"May I?" Noire wordlessly placed the pistol in his outstretched hand. He quickly left the room and his footfalls faded into the distance. Blake went back to stripping the guard as Noire did the same. The uniform was relatively plain, consisting of dark grey pants and a grey shirt with a deep maroon stripe running diagonally across the torso with yellow piping on the edges of the seam and on the cuffs. However the thing that caught Blake's eye was a small badge that almost reminded her of the Merlot Industries symbol. It was comprised of a inverted triangle with a horizontal line at its vertex and a vertical line branching off both the vertex and base of the triangle. Inside the triangle was a small enameled logo that took the form of a capital "J" over a line with a lower case "S" below that. The enamel was the same dark red from the uniform and the metal was all a brightly polished gold.

"So who's going in disguise?" Yang asked.

"You and I will. We can get into the base easier that way." Blake answered.

"Alright. We should look for some sort of records room, that's bound to have information about what's going on." Yang reasoned. Blake nodded in approval.

"Are we just going to twiddle our thumbs then?" Neptune asked.

"They'll need a distraction." Noire said. "You two get into the facility, Neptune and I will steal anything that isn't nailed down and make some trouble to buy you time."

"WOOHOOO, I LOVE MAKING NOISE!" Neptune was clearly enthusiastic about her role.

"Alright, Blake and I will get changed and then we'll head out." Yang said. The two walked into a nearby room and started stripping off their outfits. Living it a dorm room, it wasn't anything they weren't used to but they still gave each other privacy. Thankfully, the guards had relatively similar measurements and they could both fit into the uniforms passably well.

"Okay, then, let's get going." Blake said, walking out of the room.

* * *

Noire and Neptune followed far behind Blake and Yang as they approached the compound. The tunnel opened into another clearing, this one clearly man-made, revealing the sprawling structure. There was a single central building and many small structures of varying sizes. The smaller buildings looked like they had been prebuilt and moved on site as needed, whereas the main building was sturdy and well set into the ground. The group stopped to better survey the site, hiding behind a rock with binoculars at the ready. Noire could see soldiers gathered around the east side of the complex in a small training ground. She made note to avoid that area on their approach. The west side housed a hodgepodge of buildings with large plastic tunnels running between them. The personnel that moved in and out of them looked to be scientists with white lab coats and gloves. That was likely where any important tech or research was located. Looking back at Blake and Yang, it was clear they had made the same conclusions. The large building would have any important records and information, while the west wing would have valuable technology. Noire moved towards the west wing with Neptune close behind. She peeked out from behind a rock and saw a clear path to one of the buildings. Breathing deeply, she prepared to run only to feel Neptune pull her back behind the rock. Noire whirled her head around but Neptune covered her mouth before she could speak. The sound of footsteps crunched along gravel as an armed patrol passed mere feet away from them. The former goddess sighed, annoyed that Neptune had noticed something she hadn't but still grateful. Noire suddenly felt Neptune's arm wrap around her waist and hold her tightly. She had no time to speak before Neptune shot one of her grappling hooks at the cave ceiling, dangling them 20 or so feet above the ground. Neptune began to flex her body and gradually start swinging back and forth, extending the rope with each swing. Noire quickly understood what her plan was and moved her own body in sync with Neptune's. They gradually got closer to one of the buildings before Neptune lowered them completely on the final swing. They landed mid-run on the roof of one of the labs as Neptune detached the grapple. Noire moved to open a nearby hatch in the roof, glancing at Neptune who flashed her a thumbs-up. The two goddess dropped into the lab, much to the surprise of the staff who were quickly rendered unconscious. The two started scouring the place for anything useful, Neptune taking the area labeled "Weapons" and Noire taking the "Research" section. The Research lab was full of advanced machinery from microscopes to laser cutters, everything painted a bright white and smelling very sterile. The smell of labs and hospitals always reminded her of Compa, who could never seem to stop that smell from following her around. Noire quickly pushed the thoughts of home out of her mind, she had a job to do. She started by looking through a large rack of vials labeled "Samples". Each vial was sealed and had a paper with a date written on it, but the interesting quality was what they contained. They all held sky blue crystals of assorted sizes and shapes; most were very small, save for a handful that were about 3 inches long. Out of curiosity, she opened one of the vials and dropped the crystal into her palm. She immediately felt an incredible surge of power that she had known few times before. Wide eyed, she placed the crystal back into the vial and quickly shoved every single vial into her pack. The CPU sprinted over to the weapons area to find Neptune who was currently trying on some sort of armor.

"Neptune, come here!" Noire said urgently. Neptune dropped what she was doing and ran over to her.

"What's up?" The purple girl asked nonchalantly.

"Look at this." Noire handed her a vial. "They've been experimenting on share crystals." Neptune's eyes shot open upon hearing that.

"How? Where could they even be getting them?"

"It's the meteors. Somehow they've been transporting share crystals into this world."

"How many are there?"

"Dozens." Noire said, opening her pack to prove her point. Neptune's mouth dropped as if she had seen a mountain of pudding.

"Well let's hope the other two can get something from the records. This might be a way to get back home! In the meantime, check this stuff out." Neptune ran back to the device she had been messing with. "It's some sort of jetpack thing as far as I can tell. There's also a lot of bombs over on that wall." Just as Neptune finished her sentence, they heard a loud alarm sounding throughout the complex. The two exchanged glances before their eyes turned to the aforementioned wall of bombs. Looking over at Neptune, Noire saw a devilish smile spread across her face.

"Let's put those bombs to use."

(A few minutes earlier)

* * *

Blake kept a rigid posture as they patrolled down the hallways of the main building. Getting in had been surprisingly easy, they just walked right in. They had been following signs labeled "Archives" for a few minutes now before arriving at a pair of steel doors with a secretary at a nearby desk.

"I'm sorry but access to the archives is restricted to the science division and the Director." Yang pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the woman.

"Good thing I have an all access key." She smirked. Blake sighed at her joke, as per usual.

"V-very well." The woman said as she pressed a button on the desk, opening the doors.

"Why don't you come in with us? Can't have you sounding an alarm or anything now, can we?" Yang said. Unfortunately, she soon ate her words as a siren cut through the complex. Blake groaned loudly.

"We have to move quickly." Blake said, dragging Yang into the room and running up to the mainframe. She plugged her scroll in and quickly initiated a data dump, just in time to hear gunshots from down the hallway. She ran up and took cover next to the door, returning fire against the security force that had approached.

"Yang! Call in the diversion." Blake shouted.

* * *

Noire felt her scroll vibrate and glanced at it, it was a call from Yang.

"What's going on?" She asked. There were gunshots across the line before Yang spoke.

"We're pinned down in the archives. Blake is downloading everything to her scroll and it's almost done. You guys need to make some noise fast!" The call disconnected after that and Noire started grabbing every bomb she could, Neptune doing the same shortly after. The duo ran out of the building and started haphazardly attaching bombs to every building they could find. After Noire had planted about eight, she began to retreat to a safe distance. There was no sign of Neptune; 'maybe she went to tag a few extra buildings?' Just as she thought that, Neptune ran around the other side of the rock Noire was hidden behind. The smaller girl smirked as she held out the detonator and her other hand. Her fingers were splayed out, but she was counting down. As she reached zero, Noire covered her ears and crouched down as the thunderous roar of an explosion reverberated through the cavern. The shockwave hit her less than a second later, knocking her onto her back. As Noire stood up, she heard Neptune's cackling laughter next to her. The explosion had created a small mushroom cloud and the complex had been utterly destroyed, save for the main building. Pulling out her binoculars, Noire could see Yang and Blake running out of a newly formed hole in the building as they sprinted towards the exit. The quartet regrouped near the entrance and started running away from the base. However they had only made it about 30 feet before a man dropped in front of them. He was tall and slender, with a mustache that could rival any man's. His outfit was made up of an untucked yellow dress shirt, a black tie, a maroon vest, and a grey suit with piping that matching his shirt. His jacket collar was upturned and he also wore brown leather shoes and fingerless gloves.

"You girls really made a mess of things, you know." His voice was smooth and condescending. He began to reach into his pocket but Yang quickly ran forward and uppercutted him in the jaw. He flew through the air for a few seconds before landing in the gravel.

"Sorry, we don't have time for that." Yang shouted to him. "Let's go!" The group continued towards the cave entrance, thankfully not running into any more opposition along the way. Blake lead the way as they dodged between different tunnels and they could quickly see the frame of the steel door they had entered through. Mauve, the man from the city, was leaning next to it and he perked up upon seeing them. They opened the door and quickly ran out into the blinding sunlight, taking a minute to readjust. Yang pulled out her scroll and punched in a number. They stood for a moment as the line rang.

"Hey, we need-" Yang's sentence was cut short as the thundering roar of jets cascaded on their ears. The group looked skyward, only to see a knifelike plane painted with the same color scheme they had seen underground. Noire acted quick and yanked everyone down to the ground, popping her shield above them. There was a telltale sound of chain guns spinning up and they were soon under a barrage of bullets.

"We're under attack! Need immediate extraction!" Yang yelled into her scroll before hanging up.

"YOU BRATS DESTROYED MY FACILITY! NOW YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR IT!" The man from earlier must have been piloting the jet, and he sounded less than pleased over the loudspeaker.

"How are we supposed to fight that?" Blake asked.

"I don't know but we have to figure it out. My shield isn't going to hold forever.

"We have to keep running, it can't target all of us at once." Neptune threw out.

"Okay. 3. 2. 1. MOVE!" Noire shouted as she turned off the shield. Neptune ran straight at the ship, Blake toward the left, and Yang to the right. Noire moved backwards, shooting at the ship with her plasma rifle. Yang sent a barrage of projectiles at it while Blake shot it with her gun. The gunship broke off its attack to maneuver. Noire saw Neptune, who was now underneath the ship, messing around with the jetpack thing she had stolen. Suddenly she launched straight up into the air, screaming as she did. Thankfully it looked like she had a hand on things as she grappled onto the ship.

"Keep hitting it! Don't give it time to attack us!" Noire shouted to the team that was still on the ground. The group obliged and the ship quickly shot up in the air before looping down and making a run with its guns. After dodging the attack, Noire saw the ship rise to a stable altitude and open several hatches on the wings. A pair of missiles suddenly shot out, heading straight for Noire. She popped her shield in a hope to survive, but the missiles blew up before they reached her. She looked up and saw Mauve standing behind her, pistol in hand. 'He's a remarkably good shot.' Noire thought to herself. However she didn't have time to think when a loud sputtering noise came from the ship. Black smoke billowed out of it as it rapidly started to lose altitude. It started to dive towards them in a last ditch effort to attack, but Noire and Mauve quickly ran out of the way. Noire turned around in time to see the ship crash into the sand behind her, but also noticed that a shadow was rapidly approaching. She had no time to process Neptune's cry of "Watch out Noire!" and the purple girl flattened her once again. The two laid there for a minute before they heard the mechanical hiss of the gunship's cockpit. The goddesses scrambled to their feet as the man climbed out of the wreckage.

"Damn it, I just built that thing." He said angrily as he dusted off his suit. "Well in that case, I'm afraid I will repay you girls another time." He started to walk away from them as if they didn't exist.

"HEY!" Neptune shouted as she climbed off of Noire. "We aren't done with you yet."

The man looked back and smirked under his mustache. "Au contraire, I believe you are." He pulled a device out of his pocket and pressed a button on it. There was a high frequency whine, and he vanished into a pillar of red light.

"Huh? He can just run away like that?" Neptune asked.

"It looked like he had a teleporter of some sort." Noire suggested. Lastation had dabbled in teleportation before, but nothing ever really succeeded. It either was impractical, or wasn't reliable enough for real use.

"Well nothing we can do about it now." Yang said as she pulled a large blanket from her pack. "I don't know about you guys but, I'm gonna catch some rays until that ship gets here." However before she could say any more, there was a thundering sonic boom as a transport slowed down above them. Transport was hardly the right word, as this vehicle looked more like an advanced fighter. It had a flying wing design and was VTOL capable thanks to a pair of large rotors set in the center of the craft. Noire suspected that there were more weapons, but all she could see was a chin mounted chain gun. As it approached the ground, the wings folded up but the rotors stayed in the same orientation, giving it a bat-like appearance. Upon touching down, a rear hatch opened and what looked like a green blur ran out of it before stopping in front of them. As the blur stopped, Noire could see that it was actually a person. He had green hair, round eyeglasses and was wearing some sort of safari gear.

"Prof-" Yang started before the man loudly cleared his throat. Noire saw Yang roll her eyes slightly. " **Doctor** Oobleck, why are you here?"

"Well you said you were in trouble, doesn't that mean you wanted a rescue? Alas I see no sign of the enemy, perhaps my presence wasn't needed after all. Very well then, carry on, we have matters to attend to back at Beacon." Oobleck spoke so rapidly that Noire was almost lost in his barrage of conversation. A glance revealed that Neptune had completely missed what he said.

"Wait Dr. Oobleck, we found something, maybe you know what it is." Blake produced the insignia pin from her pocket and handed it to the man. He studied it carefully.

"Hmmm. Geometric design, high quality construction, solid gold, glass enamel. Somebody cares quite a bit about their image. Uniforms all matching, purveyor of fashion but yet also new technology as evidenced by your teammate. Remains of unknown gunship, looks advanced, clearly a man of science. "J" over "s", hmmmm. Many possible meanings, but none that stand out to me. You fought this man, yes?" The group nodded in response. "We must get back to Beacon, perhaps Ozpin knows the symbol better than I." He rushed back into the ship without another word. The group stood, dumbfounded, for a minute before hearing him call from the ship. "Come on girls, no time like the present!"

Author's Note

Alright, this was a big one. I'm liking these long chapters a lot more so far. So we have the first (well not really first, but first one to be fought) villain to show up. My idea for Watts was to have him rely almost entirely on fancy tech to fight, which I think I did fairly well. I realized that I'm adding a lot of my own content in here, and I will try my best to make sketches of most of that and post them somewhere. Anyway I pretty much have Neptune and Noire weapons planned out, except I can't really decide on Neptune's.

Neptune's Permanent Weapon: Option 1. Short sword an pistol. Simple, effective, and not very flashy. Option 2. Dual saw blade cannons. Similar to one of team BRNZ's fighters albeit more like an actual cannon.

Option 3. Dual mini shotguns (think Mauler from Halo).

I'm not particularly attached to any one idea, so I'll leave it up for a vote as to which one she uses. No matter which one it is, her main method of movement and attack is gravity dust based movement gear. Allows for short dashes on all directions increasing dodging ability, allowing for many quick CQC attacks, and limited air support. Basically, she's gonna run around like crazy and get up close and personal.

Noire's Permanent Weapon: Modified version of the plasma multi-tool. Creates a shield (In this chapter it was a full body sized one, but the modded version is a smaller circle. Similar in shape to Arkoúo, but slightly larger.), a powerful whip to attack or ensnare (Plasma whip from Ratchet and Clank 3), a high fire rate plasma gun (Geth SMG from ME3/ High ROF, very low damage but can disorient from bright light), and finally a boxing glove-like plasma field that surrounds the hand to amplify melee attacks. Weapon can switch between these modes very quickly allowing for quick blocking and counter attacks. Inspired by the Tràkata style of lightsaber combat from Star Wars.

Also a note on Neptune's semblance. I had this planned out long before the reveal of Qrow's. Originally it was going to be something she could turn on and off, but I scrapped that idea. What I will try my best to do is not let it become a convenient deus ex machina. It is going to be limited to very small things, landing a tricky jump, spotting things she might not have seen otherwise, etc. Also unlike Qrow, Neptune's luck only affects her, not her allies or enemies.

Well thanks for reading again, not sure when the next chapter will be out but that one is going to be all about Ruby and Weiss and the villains they run into, so stay tuned.


	12. Chapter 12

Most of the villagers had been fairly shaken up after the attack. Monsters had been a rare sight lately, especially on a coastal village . Thankfully from what the trio could see, nobody had been grievously injured. Weiss was relieved, but Ruby still insisted on checking in with everyone. Meanwhile Uni was trying to reassure everyone, but she was clearly still unsettled. Weiss could easily empathize with her. What would she think if Winter was suddenly replaced with a stranger? She approached Uni who had just finished conversing with an elderly couple.

"Walk with me for a minute?" Weiss asked, though it sounded more like an order.

"But everyone..." Uni protested before Weiss cut her off.

"They will be fine, I just want to talk to you for a minute." Weiss responded. The duo meandered away from the crowd and arrived next to a large oak tree. Weiss sat down underneath it and Uni followed suit.

"Are you going to be alright?"

"W-what do you mean?" Uni said as stoically as possible.

"I'm wondering how you're dealing with me taking your sister's place."

Uni looked off into the distance. Weiss wasn't really sure what to do here. She didn't exactly have much experience with this sort of thing, she had only asked Uni out of politeness. She decided to put herself in Uni's shoes.

"I have an older sister, you know." Weiss stated. Uni silently glanced over at her. "I always looked up to her when I was a child. She seemed like she could do anything she wanted, while I was stuck being a kid." Weiss shook her head. "I'm not good at this, but what I mean is that if you want to talk about this, I can listen."

Uni sighed loudly. "Noire can handle herself, I'm not that worried about that." She paused. "Well maybe a little, but now I have to run Lastation on my own. I know it's what I've been training for but it still seems like such a big job."

"Well I don't give up easy, especially not when it comes to leading a country." Weiss said proudly. "So what do you say? Partners?" She extended her hand.

Uni looked at her for a bit before reciprocating the handshake. "Sure. Partners."

As the two headed back towards the center of town, Ruby quickly hurried over to them.

"Looks like everyone is doing fine. Most people are more concerned with where the monsters came from."

Uni sighed loudly. "Unfortunately, I have no idea. Had it just been monsters I might dismiss it as normal, but that tank makes me think otherwise. That model is a long standing series of defense bots, made here in Lastation. Whoever is behind this must be using old factory equipment."

"Well if we find that factory, then couldn't we just shut them down?" Ruby suggested.

"The factories have been dismantled for a few years now. Whoever they are, they must be doing this someplace else." Weiss knew it wouldn't be simple. If the solution was that easy, it wouldn't be a problem in the first place. 'If I had to make a robot army in secret, where would I go?'

"Uni, are there any islands of the coast of Lastation?"

The black haired girl looked up in thought. "There's a few, but they're more than 100 miles out. You think they might be out there? Why would they attack now of all times?"

"Well this village is on the coast, it's not unreasonable to think that the monsters may have been shipped here. Plus you said those factories haven't been stocked for years; whoever stole that equipment must have done it before then. If I wanted to conquer a nation, a remote island base would be quite an asset." Weiss explained her reasoning.

"Sure that makes sense." Uni nodded. "They must have been building up for years and just now started to attack. I'll send some scouts over to the islands and post guards along the coastline."

"Coooolllll. We get to fight in an evil lair." Ruby sounded a bit more excited than she should be. She was halted by a flash of light as Uni transformed back into her HDD form.

"Well I should go report this back to Kei. You two are fine to head out too." Weiss and Ruby nodded and started to walk away. "Oh, and if you need any... um advice or anything, I'm happy to help." Uni blushed briefly. "I just don't want any newcomers to slow me down, alright?" Ruby giggled at that and soon, the CPU Candidate was just a speck in the sky.

"What's so funny?" Weiss questioned. Silver eyes flashed a mischievous glance towards her.

"That just reminded me a lot of you." The redhead quipped. Weiss stopped in her tracks for a moment.

"I do not sound like that!" Weiss insisted as she caught up to Ruby.

A few hours earlier...

Vert leaned forward towards her monitor as her character dashed about her raid party, rapidly casting buff spells. Her party had been engaged in a three hour raid in 4GO and things had been going well until the party's tank had gone idle for two minutes. It was taking quite a lot of work to keep him alive until he got back.

Helsing: Sorry guys I have to get off. Town is under attack.

Green Heart: Is everything going to be alright?

Helsing: Yeah the CPUs are here, but we're still supposed to take shelter.

Green Heart: Be safe.

Helsing has logged out.

The rest of her party conversed back and forth about this news. Attacks had been unheard of for the past few years. Vert kept tabs on all of her party members, so she knew that Helsing lived in Lastation. In that case Uni would be there, and the CPUs he mentioned must be Ruby and Weiss. 'Hopefully Uni handles the dramatic reveal well.' the blonde thought to herself. Histoire had tried to call Uni earlier in the day to report what had happened, but Uni never answered for whatever reason. Vert decided to flip through the news to find out more about the situation and was surprised to see two stories running in parallel. The Lastation attack was a bulletin running at the bottom of a disaster report from Lowee. From what the report said, a large terraportaion ship had crashed not far form the center of the city. As the footage of the crash played back, Vert could easily see White Heart cutting herself out before the impact. The report quickly cut back to present time to show the passengers being rescued by Rom and Ram of all people. Small glyphs formed as the twins used their magic to cut a hole in the side of the ship. Vert decided to call Blanc to inform her about what happened in Lastation as these events seemed too close to be unconnected.

"Blanc is everything alright there?" Vert asked after waiting for the other CPU to pick up.

"There's a lot of injuries but no deaths as of now. This better be important, I have my people to take care of here." Blanc's tone was sharp and matter of fact.

"If you haven't heard, there's a village under attack in Lastation right now. It sounds like Ruby, Weiss, and Uni have it under control but this can't be a coincidence." The other girl was silent for a moment.

"We should call a summit with Ruby and Weiss. We need to figure out what's going on here."

"Agreed. I'll let you finish up there and we can meet back at Planeptune. I can brief Histoire on all of this." A quick beep signaled that Blanc had hung up. Vert quickly sent a message to both the Guild and the Leanbox Special Forces advising them to prepare for any sort of attack. Vert felt fairly safe leaving her nation to protect itself for a while. While they may not have had the technology that Planeptune or Lastation did, Leanbox had the largest military of any nation when it came to sheer numbers. Almost every single town had policies on how to form a civilian militia if needed; a necessary precaution owing to the remote locations of some villages. If a town was attacked, it could take quite a long time for the main army to reach them. If things got particularly bad, Vert could definitely rely on Cave and her task group to handle anything short of an invasion. With that note, she decided to take her personal ship to Planeptune.

Upon reaching Planeptune's Basilicom, Ruby dramatically flopped down on a nearby couch. Weiss rolled her eyes at the younger girl's theatrics.

"Ruby you can rest later, we need to go figure out who's behind this." Logic proved to be no use as the redhead burrowed further into the plush furniture. The heiress scoffed impatiently and walked over and tugged on Ruby's arm, eliciting a muffled grunt from the girl.

"Later..." Ruby replied lazily.

"Ruby Rose." Weiss insisted in her 'command voice' as Ruby dubbed it. "I will drag you off that couch if I have too." The cloaked girl stayed quiet this time, only bothering to shift her body slightly. Weiss tapped her foot a grand total of 3 times before Ruby lunged at her with blinding speed. She didn't even have time to let out a yelp as a blanket wrapped around the two of them. After a second passed, the duo dropped lightly onto the couch. After taking a second to process what happened, Weiss wriggled about within her cloth prison. It was then that she noticed a pair of grey orbs directly in front of her own face.

"Ruby. Let. Me. Go." Ruby's face morphed into a grin at this.

"Nope."

"If you don't let me go, so help me-"

"You need to rest too; you've been worked up all day." Weiss paused at this. Of course she was more stressed than normal, but she didn't realize it was that obvious. Of course if Ruby was concerned, there was no escape as she was faster and stronger than Weiss. Ruby clearly took this silence as a gesture to continue.

"I get worried when people are stressed you know?" Weiss thought back to Blake before the dance. Yang was the only one who ended up getting through to her after a heartfelt conversation. Weiss distinctly remembered confronting Blake herself to no avail. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

"You don't need to worry about me Ruby, I know how to take care of myself. I've been doing it most of my life." She winced at the last thought that she didn't mean to say aloud. Weiss rarely talked about her life before Beacon, mostly due to the strict lifestyle her father enforced upon her.

"Of course I have to worry about you, we're partners. You can rely on me Princess." Weiss tensed up at the nickname. She never liked being called a Princess but even more so now. It reminded her of when she met her team and acted... less than nice. However Weiss could tell that Ruby meant it in an endearing fashion, so it didn't bother her as much.

"Thank you Ruby. However I still think we need to find out more information."

"Where are we going to get any? We don't know anything about this world."

"Maybe Histoire knows some-" Ruby cut her off.

"I saw her face when she got the call from the Guild. She looked pretty shocked, so I doubt she knows anything about it." Weiss was surprised at the logically train of thought the other girl was following.

"So you're saying we should just wait here for a while?"

"Yep." Ruby replied as she nuzzled into the blanket cocoon. Weiss accepted her fate and allowed herself to relax. However as she was shifting around, there was a short click as the door opened. Weiss froze as the intruder called out into the seemingly vacant room.

"Hello? Is anybody home..." The dainty voice belonging to Vert stopped as she peered over the couch. "Oh my. Apologies you two, I didn't mean to interrupt anything. I'll just go talk to Histoire then." The blonde turned on her heels, a faint blush on her face.

"Wait, this isn't what it looks like!" Weiss said as she and Ruby scrambled to their feet. "We were just resting." She shot Ruby a glare as she spoke, earning a sheepish grin from the other girl.

"It is none of my business what goes on between two consenting adults." Vert replied teasingly.

"Why are you back here anyway Vert? I thought you would have headed back to Leanbox by now?"

"I called a summit with Blanc. In addition to the attack you two dealt with, a Planeptune ship crashed in Lowee. These events happening after you two showed up is too much to be coincidental."

"This sort of thing doesn't happen often?" Weiss asked.

Vert shook her head. "Not for some time." As soon as she had closed her mouth, the door opened again to reveal Blanc.

"Ah Blanc, I was just informing these two about what happened." Vert said.

"Good. Where's Histoire? We'll need her for this as well." As if on cue, the Oracle floated into the room with Nepgear close behind her.

"Unfortunately I only know what I've heard from the Guild reports. We know someone is behind all of this, but we have no idea who they are or what their motives are."

"We might have something to go off of." Ruby said. "We fought a Lastation robot in the village; Uni said someone must have stolen old factory equipment. We think they might have a base on some islands east of the coast."

"Well that would explain the coastal attack. Those factories have been disabled for years, so our adversary must have been planning this for a long time." Histoire reasoned.

"Uni said she was going to send scouts over there, but it might be some time before we hear any reports." Weiss informed the group.

"Good. Then it seems like we are just going to wait until-" A ringing stopped Blanc's sentence. Weiss and Ruby exchanged a glance; that was the ringtone of a scroll, specifically Ruby's. She quickly snatched it out of her pocket and answered it.

"Hello?" She took it away from her head and switched it to speaker.

"Ms. Rose, it's a relief to hear you're alright." The voice was unmistakably Professor Ozpin. "I trust Ms. Schnee is with you?"

"Yes we're both here. Pardon the question Professor, but how exactly did you call us?" Weiss asked.

"That's quite a story in and of itself. Before that however, I'm assuming you two have seemingly switched places with a pair of girls named Neptune and Noire?"

"Yep, we seemed to have gained their powers. We were actually just having a meeting with the other CPUs."

"Is Neptune okay?" Nepgear asked before anyone else could say anything.

"She's quite alright. I sent for them once the call connected, so you'll be able to talk in a few minutes. However there is quite a lot of that we must discuss before that."

"Well I know more about this world that anyone else. Hello I'm Histoire, the Oracle of Planeptune."

"Hello Histoire, I'm Professor Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. I suppose it would be best if I explain what has happened on our end. The abridged version is that Neptune and Noire woke up in place of Ruby and Weiss yesterday. They adapted quickly to our world and I sent them on a mission to investigate a series of strange meteors centered around a criminal refuge. Upon reaching it, they found that an unknown organization had converted it into a covert research complex. Through some means, they had been summoning what Neptune and Noire refer to as share crystals which I assume are native to your world. After retrieving research data and destroying the base, they were attacked by a man in some type of advanced gunship. They were able to defeat him but he fled soon after. The data they recovered showed a method of intra-dimensional communication and we quickly modified a scroll with this capability. That is the essence of our situation, has there been any sort of unusual activity in your world?"

"Yes. Earlier today, Lastation was attacked by a force that we currently suspect came from a distant island. In addition, a Planeptune airship was sabotaged through unknown means. We figured that between this and Neptune and Noire's disappearance, there was some other force at work."

"My thoughts as well. These events are all happening far too close together; I suspect whoever is behind the attack in your world is connected to the man that Neptune and Noire fought. Aside from that, I unfortunately have no more information."

"Is Ruby there?" The group here faintly in the background of the call.

"Yes Ms. Xiao Long, your sister is fine. I can send the blueprints of the scroll modifications after the call, but I imagine everyone will want to talk for a bit." As if on cue, Yang's voice got much louder.

"Rubes, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine Yang, how's everything over there?" The aforementioned girl responded.

"Well we totally blew up an evil underground lair, so I'd say pretty awesome. Huh what's that?" There was a pause as Yang conversed with someone else. "Oh, how's Weiss doing?"

"I'm quite alright, thank you for your concern." Weiss responded.

"How's Blake doing?" Ruby asked.

"I'm a bit tired, but other fine otherwise." Blake's soft voice responded.

"Oh, before I get ahead of myself, Neptune and Noire are here too." Yang stated.

"Hi everyone!" A high pitched voice yelled.

"Hi sis." Nepgear stepped up to the table. 

"Oh hey Nep Jr. I hope you haven't been worrying about me like crazy. It's pretty nice over here."

"She's been fine. No doubt to Vert constantly doting on her." Blanc said jokingly.

"Hey Vert I told you she's my sister, not yours."

"Really Neptune, you're going to waste this time bickering about Vert?" Another, more composed voice said. Weiss guessed it was Noire.

"Uni is fine as well Noire, Ruby and Weiss helped her defend a village in Lastation earlier today." Vert informed the other girl.

"There was an attack? Was anyone hurt?" Said girl asked.

"Nothing major, mostly just a few scrapes." Weiss clarified. "Uni was pretty worried about you, but I was able to reassure her."

"I don't mean to interrupt this reunion, but we have a fairly serious problem." Histoire cut in. There was a brief silence before Ozpin's voice came back on.

"What might that be?"

"This was more than just the four girls trading places. Our history has been entirely rewritten. As far as we can gather, the general population believes that Neptune and Noire vanished mysteriously three years ago. Ruby and Weiss then replaced them and Planeptune and Lastation worship them just as they worshiped Neptune and Noire mere days ago." There was a loud silence at this.

"That sounds quite serious. It would appear that whoever is responsible for this is extraordinarily powerful."

"That is what we suspect as well. Between this and the appearance of share crystals in your world, it is clearly something unlike we've ever seen before."

"Well there is no use worrying about something we know nothing about." Ozpin said to ease everyone's worries. "We should be prepared for anything to happen and keep constant communication. If anything turns up on those islands, call us immediately. That said, I imagine everyone could use some rest, so I shall leave you to it." Everyone exchanged goodbyes before the call was terminated. Shortly after, the scroll received a technical document that detailed the modifications Ozpin mentioned.

"Nepgear, you're good with electronics right?" Weiss asked. "Do you think that you could make this?" The pink haired girl looked over the design briefly before nodding.

"Yeah, it looks fairly simple. I should be able to get it done soon."

"Alright well, I think we should take Ozpin's advice and get some rest. It's been a long day." Ruby said cheerily. Weiss knew from before that it was more than just rest she was excited about. It was odd how she and Ruby had grown close so fast, but maybe that's just what happened when you were stranded in a foreign world with a friend. Not that Weiss bothered their new proximity, she actually enjoyed it.

"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you two. There's a spare bedroom down the hall that you two can share." Histoire told them.

"Cool. Come on Weiss, you have to rest too." Ruby called back to her. Weiss smiled in response. Yeah, she definitely didn't mind this.

Author's Note

Man, it's been a long time. Sorry this took so long, it took me forever to come up with a plot for this chapter. I'm not sure how often this will get updated, but I would like to aim for at least once a month or so. I am in college now so that might fluctuate a lot, so don't worry if it takes longer. As always, thanks for sticking around even though it takes forever.


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